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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

TEN STUDIES IN DISCIPLESHIP 



ALEXANDER C. PURDY 



The Way of Christ 

Studies in Discipleship 



ALEXANDER C. PURDY 

" BIBLICAL DEPARTMENT, EARLHAM COLLEGE 






THE WOMANS PRESS 

600 Lexington Avenue 

NEW YORK CITY 

1918 






Copyright, July, 1918, by 

National Board of the Young Women's Christian Associations 

of the United States of America 



OCT 16 1918 

©CI.A503860 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The "Set" of a Life 9 

II. The Beginnings 23 

III. The Statesmanship of Jesus 38 

IV. Jesus' Idea of the New Order 52 

V. Conditions of Entrance 65 

VI. The Ideal Citizen , 79 

VII. The Inner Attitude 91 

VIII. The Law of Love 104 

IX. The Citizen and Society 116 

X. The Capital City of the Kingdom . . . 131 

A Teaching Outline 145 



PLAN OF THE BOOK 

This book is meant to lead the reader directly to the Bible. 
It is for this reason that certain references grouped under 
the head of biblical material stand at the beginning of each 
chapter. A number of questions designed to open up the 
biblical passages follow. These references and questions 
should be thoughtfully studied before the material of the 
chapter is read. 

The chapter itself will then tend to gather up the results of 
the personal study and focus the attention upon certain defi- 
nite points which may then serve as profitable topics for group 
discussions. 

An outline for group discussion is appended at the back of 
the book for the benefit of the leader, and the purpose of the 
study is there indicated. 



CHAPTER I 

THE "SET" OF A LIFE 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

1. Read Luke 1:5, 6; 46-55, 67-79. Try to characterize this 
group of people. 

2. Look for evidence of Jesus' acquaintance with the great 
prophets; Cf. Isaiah 29:13 with Mark y:6; Hosea 6:6 with 
Mt. 9:13; Isaiah 61: iff with Luke 4:i6ff, etc. 

3. Read and study Luke 2 :40-52. 

I. The Importance of Getting a Good Start. 

1. Read the preface of Luke's gospel (1:1-4), noting the 
care with which he has selected his materials. Why did he 
pick out this one incident (Luke 2 :40-52) from the early years 
of Jesus' life? 

2. When is Jesus usually said to have begun his life work? 
Is there any sense in which we may say that He began his life 
work before his entrance upon the public ministry? In what 
sense did He begin his life work as a boy of twelve? 

3. Why was it important that Jesus set the compass of his 
life so early? 

4. Why is a good start of such importance in any field of 
endeavor? Why is it important from the point of view of 
the individual? Of those with whom he lives? Of the task 
he may have to do ? 

9 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

II. What Constitutes a Good Start? 

i. Name the elements which entered into Jesus' experience 
in the temple. Which was the most important, his . home 
training, his own awakening understanding, or a sense of 
the world's need? 

2. Just what did Jesus do to start his life work? What 
is the significance of the silence of the records at this point? 
Was this "start" marked by outer achievement or inner 
attitude ? 

3. What constitutes a good start for any life? Is there any 
world need to-day comparable to the need of Jesus' world? 
Is there any "hope" to-day as widespread as the Kingdom 
hope in Jesus' day? 



I. The First Picture of Jesus. 

We know almost nothing about the boy Jesus. Just a few 
sentences sum up the story of the first thirty years. Into 
those obscure years of his boyhood and young manhood legend 
and myth have sought to peer, but the gospel history grants 
us only one clear picture. Luke, the artist of the evangelists, 
has drawn it for us with a few swift strokes of his pen, 
and it is a priceless treasure. We could not do without it, 
for the features of its central figure are drawn with such 
sure, firm lines that we know Him better from this single 
picture than a score of less revealing sketches could have 
told us. 

Read again the familiar story of the boy Jesus in the 

10 



THE "SET" OF A LIFE 

temple (Luke 2:41-50). We have reason to be thankful for it, 
not because it shows what an abnormal lad Jesus was to be 
there listening to the deep talk of theologians and asking 
them from time to time questions that amazed them. Jesus 
always had that gift. He could ask questions that searched 
honest men's s-ouls and bared the plots of scoundrels and it 
is not so astonishing that as a boy of twelve He had that 
faculty. Most twelve-year-olds ask questions that go straight 
to the heart of things and leave older folk with no adequate 
answers. 

But read on. He becomes so interested in what these 
graybeards are talking about that He actually forgets the 
home journey and the home-going kinsfolk, and the hour set 
for departure comes and goes. His parents leave, thinking Him 
in the company. They discover their mistake and hurry back 
to find Him in the temple sitting at the feet of the rabbis, 
listening to them and asking questions. Then, the half hesi- 
tant reproach, "Son, why have you treated us in this way? 
Think how anxiously your father and I have been searching 
for you !" And He turns to them, this twelve-year-old peasant 
boy, and asks, "Why have you been searching for me? Did 
you not know that I must be about my Father's business?" It 
seems a strange answer. Can we hope to understand it and 
the boy who uttered it? 

II. What People Thought About Religion in Jesus' Day. 

Was Jesus' reply to his parents simply the answer of a 

strange and wonderful boy, with a halo around his head? 

May we not come at it from another angle? What could 

those graybeards have been discussing as they talked there 

in the temple — the latest scribal interpretation of what 

11 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Rabbi So-and-so had said concerning Rabbi So-and-so's ex- 
planation of a dry-as-dust legal tradition? Such talk would 
never have caused any boy to forget father and mother and 
home. But there was one subject which would enthrall every 
earnest Jewish boy, — the Kingdom, the coming Kingdom. 

Just as so many hearts are athrill with the hope of a coming 
world democracy to-day, so the coming Kingdom was the 
dream of every Jewish patriot and the hope of every pious 
home. It was the silver thread woven into the dark fabric of 
Jewish history. In the blackest night great prophets told of 
the dawning of a better day when David's glorious reign 
should be equaled and indeed surpassed, and Messiah should 
come to rule the world and restore the Jews to their rightful 
dominion. What other subject could have engaged the 
thoughts of those wise theologians and that eager peasant boy? 
What more natural than that the boy Jesus should have 
asked, When and how will this day come ? 

There were Pharisees among the teachers in the temple 
that day, and we know pretty well how a spokesman from 
that party would have answered the question. "The king- 
dom," he would have replied, "belongs to another world 
order than this. We cannot bring it in by political revolt 
against Rome or by social revolution, for it is the Kingdom 
of the age that is to be. We know not when it will come, 
but this we do know, that it will be inaugurated by signs and 
portents. The sun will be darkened; the moon will become 
bloody, the stars will drop from their places. There will be 
a terrible catastrophe. The forces of Jehovah will battle vic- 
toriously with the evil spirits and then will the new world 
come. It will be let down out of the heavens upon the 
earth. Messiah will rule upon the throne of David and the 

12 



THE "SET" OF A LIFE 

sons of Abraham will inherit the kingdom prepared for 
them. All our enemies will have been slain by the sword 
of Jehovah, and the Jewish nation, revived, restored and glori- 
fied, will come into its own. And if we hope to share in 
this glorious day we must be good Jews. Observe the law 
with scrupulous exactness, every jot and tittle. And the 
traditions of the elders and the interpretations of the scribes, 
these are of vital importance. Tithe and fast and pray and 
sabbatize with meticulous care." 

And then perhaps a representative of the sect of the Essenes, 
clad in spotless white, would speak. "I agree with the 
Pharisee as to the nature of the Kingdom and its coming," he 
would say, "but that we may prepare for participation in it 
we would do well to withdraw from the world with its sordid 
cares and material ambitions and live in meditation and 
prayer. Ceremonial purity is essential for entrance into the 
coming Kingdom and one must renounce worldly concerns 
and business affairs, trade, gain and the like." 

There might even be a Sadducee present who would ven- 
ture to speak. His remarks would run like this, "I care 
little for theology. It's a mistake to fill the heads of the 
people with such wild ideas as these. I take no stock in any 
fanciful notions of a coming Kingdom. Affairs are going 
well as they are. So long as the Sadducees hold the priest- 
hood, the nation is in good hands. The poor will always 
grumble, but it is the part of wisdom to make the best of 
things as they are. Rome is a powerful state and we had 
best live on good terms with her. The Sadducees are setting 
the best example." 

Only voices such as these would have been heard in that 
group that day, but they were not the only voices in the 

!3 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Palestine of Jesus" day. Though but a boy, He would have 
heard in Galilean Nazareth and on the journey to Jerusalem 
the cry of the poor. "Oh, that some deliverer would appear! 
We common folk would hear him gladly. We would make 
him king and follow him in any attempt to cast off the 
Roman yoke and set up a Jewish political state here and now. 
The Pharisee and the Sadducee can afford to wait and specu- 
late about a Kingdom in the far distant future, but we, who 
feel the burden of poverty and who know what it is to be 
hungry and cold, want, relief now." 

And still another voice would be sounding in Jesus' ears 
as He listened to the scholars in the temple that day. He 
would be remembering the hopes and ideals of the home 
circle from which He had come. The quiet, devout spirit of 
Mary, his mother, and her kinswoman, Elizabeth, would not 
be forgotten. He would have been told of the words of 
Zacharias (Luke 1 168-79) and of the aged Simeon (Luke 
2:29-32). We need to remember when we think of the Jews 
of Jesus' day that they were not all like the formal Pharisee 
and the worldly Sadducee. The first pages of Luke give us a 
picture of very different folk, simple and devout. They 
named their sons after the old Hebrew patriarchs. Note the 
names of the sons in Jesus' home: James (or Jacob) , Joseph, 
Simon, Judas (Mt. 13:55). In such quiet lives the noblest 
spirit of the Old Testament lived on. 

The boy Jesus would be thinking, too, of the lessons He 
had learned in the village synagogue school. The great open- 
ing words of the Jewish confession of faith, "Hear, O Israel, 
Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and thou sh'alt love Jehovah 
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
thy might" (Deut. 6:4), were perhaps the first words He 

14 



THE ''SET" OF A EIFE 

had been taught to repeat. He would be remembering the 
words of the great prophets with their insistence upon justice, 
mercy, love and righteousness, such words as Amos spoke, 
"Hate the evil and love the good and establish justice in the 
gate" (5:15); and Hosea. "I desire goodness and not sacri- 
fice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" 
(6:6); and Micah, ". . . what doth Jehovah require of 
thee but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk- 
humbly with thy God" (6 :8) ; and the new covenant of Jere- 
miah (31 131-34) ; and the Servant Poems of Isaiah. 

Is it too much to suppose that ideals and hopes were the 
subject of discussion in the temple that day and that widely 
divergent opinions were even then confronting the boy Jesus ? 
See how such a background lights up the puzzling answer 
He gave his mother. 

III. The Dawn of a Great Purpose. 

And He said to them, "Why have you been searching for 
me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's 
business?" The halo fades from the picture. We no longer 
see the boy Jesus in the dim half-light of magic and mystery. 
His is neither the wan. drawn face of an ascetic nor the 
precocious face of a prodigy. But Luke has drawn for us 
the earnest, strong features of a manly peasant lad. It is a 
face alight with hope and glorified with a dawning purpose. He 
is saying to his father and mother, These things I have been 
hearing, and the noble prophetic ideals and the hopes which 
you have told me of at home — all this is my Father's busi- 
ness. And to-day I know, as you. too, cannot help knowing, 
that I must be about this, my Father's business. This is to 
be my life task. 

15 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

It is not given us to know how much or little He under- 
stood of his own life that stretched out before Him, but 
these were the words He spoke. The compass of his life 
was set. He could return now to Nazareth to be "obedient 
to them." 

IV. The Silent Years. 

For eighteen years He lived in Nazareth. Not a word do 
we have from the records about those years save the very 
general statement of Luke that He "advanced in wisdom and 
stature and in favor with God and man." Yet we may 
picture the Jesus of the silent years with reasonable cer- 
tainty, for his teaching and life during the three years of 
public ministry reveal what manner of boy and man He must 
have been in Nazareth of Galilee. 

They were years of labor. We have been wrong in think- 
ing that his trade was an aside which merely occupied his 
hands while brain and heart were up in the clouds. In 
all probability He was a builder of houses and not simply a 
small carpenter who did repair work in his father's shop. 

"His interest in the foundations of the temple, his parable 
of the houses built on the rock or on the sand (Mt. 7:24-27), 
his allusions to the destruction of the temple and to its being 
rebuilt (John 2:19, 20), to the man who pulled down his 
granaries that he might build larger (Luke 12:18), and to 
the builder who exhausted his resources before completing his 
work (Luke 14:28-30), all imply that Jesus was a master 
builder." * 

We may picture his social life in that small city, Nazareth. 

* Kent : Life and Teachings of Jesus, p. 55. 

16 



THE "SET' OF A LIFE 

Nowhere is there a better chance of coming into contact with 
all kinds of folk, genuine and hypocritical, generous and 
selfish, queer and conventional, than in a small town. Was 
it in these years that Jesus acquired his marvelous knowledge 
of human nature? Men do not suddenly learn after reaching 
the age of thirty years to be equally at home with rich and 
poor, learned and ignorant, nor are they welcomed at wed- 
ding feasts if for thirty years they have been living hermit 
lives. Jesus must have known and liked his townspeople and 
in turn He must have been liked by them. 

We may with all confidence think of Him as rejoicing in 
the great out-of-doors in these eighteen years, for as Paul 
loves illustrations from cities and soldiers and athletics, so 
Jesus' teachings are full of birds and flowers and fields. 

We may think of Him as in close touch with the larger 
world of men. Had He world problems to face in those 
silent years? Was He confronted with anything comparable 
to the surging world issues which challenge young people 
to-day? 

"It has been a common mistake to think of Nazareth as 
a quiet spot far from the life of the great world, where Jesus 
was nurtured in seclusion. That is far from the truth. . . . 
The smiling waters of Galilee lay scarce more than fifteen 
miles to the east. Only a few miles farther to the north- 
west was the Mediterranean. Nearby ran, north and south, 
the great highway which for centuries joined the ancient 
kingdoms of Egypt and Babylonia. . . . Just below, to the 
south, was the great plain of Esdraelon, where so many of 
Israel's battles had been fought. All about was the teeming 
life of Galilee with its numberless villages and cities. . . . 
From the hills above his home He must have seen at times the 

17 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Roman legions on their march, and Roman rulers with their 
brilliant f ollowing." * 

Nazareth was far less provincial in its interests and asso- 
ciations than many an American city. 

But what of his inner life? Did He sometimes ask Him- 
self during those long years, When will my time come? As 
He stood at dusk or sunrise on the hills above Nazareth and 
looked out over the Galilean plains or caught a glint of the 
blue waters of the Mediterranean far to the northwest, did 
He ask, Will all my life be like this ? Did He sometimes 
forget the great purpose which He had expressed in those 
boyhood days of awakening understanding? No, He never 
forgot or wavered. How do we know? Because when his 
hour struck He was absolutely ready. When the call came 
for a larger service, He heard a voice saying, "Thou art my 
beloved Son, in Thee I am well pleased." Well pleased at 
what? we may ask. He had neither preached nor healed nor 
ministered in any public way. He must have been well pleas- 
ing to his heavenly Father in the unrecorded toil as a 
carpenter, in his daily dealings with the people of Nazareth, 
in the commonplace routine of daily living. Even there He 
felt the imperative to "be about my Father's business." 

This single purpose dominated his life from first to last. 
Always the direction of his life was the same. As the little 
trickle of water gathers moisture from this slope and that 
and widens, deepens, broadens, growing in power and momen- 
tum until in majesty it pours its mighty waters into the 
ocean, so through Jesus' life there flowed this stream of pur- 
pose, broadening, deepening, widening as the years went on 

* Rail : New Testament History, p. 36. 

18 



THE U SET" OF A LIFE 

but ever making in the same direction, his Fathers business, 
his Father's will for Him. 

V. The "Set" of a Life. 

The first picture we have of Jesus reveals Him as a boy 
who at the age of twelve had a single clear-cut purpose. 
There is not the slightest hint that He knew where that pur- 
pose would lead him, nor is there a suggestion that He had 
a solution to offer for the tangled religious and political 
problems of the day. He was but a lad, and the marvelously 
revealing story which Luke has left us does not picture Him 
as rebuking the Sadducee or correcting the Pharisee or sym- 
pathizing with the Revolutionist. But He did hear the call 
of the Kingdom, and in response to that call He promised 
but one thing for the needs of humanity and that was — 
Himself. He gave the supreme gift that any human being 
can offer to the world, — an unexhausted, untainted, potential 
personality, strong with the strength of gathering energies, 
buoyant with the hope and promise of youth. That was his 
gift when He said, "I must be about my Father's business." 

Our study is to be about citizenship in the great democracy 
of God that is to be, but so far we have not explained who 
the citizens are or indeed what constitutes citizenship. Ought 
we not to begin by denning and discussing and speculating 
about these things? Or, on the other hand, was this just 
the mistake the Pharisees made? They put theory and the- 
ology first and personal dedication to the needs of the world 
and the cause of righteousness, second. Jesus reversed the 
order. He gave his life to the cause of God and let that 
lead Him where it would. He was not committed to any 
theory or program save the program of God as that would 

19 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

unfold itself to Him through the eighteen years of obscurity 
which followed. 

Citizenship to-day begins where Jesus began, with a per- 
sonal dedication to the things that are right and clean and 
true, to the things the world needs, to the things of God. 
It involves in the first instance not the acceptance of a theory 
but simply the resolute "set" of the soul toward the "right as 
God gives us to know the right." A goodly heritage and 
high ideals, a rich background of home influences, these 
values are as priceless to-day as they were when the boy 
Jesus first faced the great world and its need, but they are 
not enough. Behind all this, using it all and building upon 
it, there must be an unswerving personal purpose. If there 
be such a regnant purpose in the beginning of life, men and 
issues fall into line behind it. or are judged by it and 
rejected. 

The man or woman, though neither brilliant nor talented, 
whose life is organized by a sufficient purpose, moves steadily 
through the years, making every opportunity for study, every 
bit of experience, every social and athletic achievement, every 
single individual encountered, pay tribute to that purpose. 
There is not a human vocation which does not call for such 
singleness of aim. The initial achievement for any task is 
not the mastering of the task but the mastering of the self, 
the "set of the soul" to some sufficient goal. 

It is not otherwise in the Kingdom of God. 

"One ship drives east, another drives west 

While the self-same breezes blow. 
'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales 

That bids them where to go. 
20 



THE U SET" OF A LIFE 

"Like the winds of the sea are the ways of the fates 

As we voyage along through life, 
Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal 

And not the storm or the strife." 

VI. The Purpose Tested. 

If we are to form any true estimate of the power and 
meaning of Jesus' boyhood purpose, we must look for just a 
moment down the vista of the years, those three tumultuous 
years. Through what a maze of passion and human need, 
hostility and adulation, triumph and disaster, He moves un- 
disturbed ! Temptations real and powerful assail Him. He 
checks them up with his purpose. Has this anything to do 
with God's plan for me? He seems to say. If not, He sweeps 
it aside. It is powerless to touch Him. Easy popularity lies 
within his grasp but He deliberately rejects it, because per- 
sonal popularity in itself does not mean the accomplishment 
of his purpose. Just as deliberately He antagonizes the most 
powerful forces in the land because they block the way to the 
accomplishment of that purpose. 

He moves among social outcasts and moral degenerates 
but they do not pollute Him; rather He saves them. With 
equal freedom He associates with people of wealth and cul- 
ture and they do not rob Him of his purpose or cause Him 
to "ease down." 

Even the last terrible temptation to turn aside from the 
path which leads to the Cross prevails not. "He steadfastly 
set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). 

"He steadfastly set his face" — these words constitute an 
epitome of his life. He was mastered by a mighty purpose, 

21 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

a consuming, dominating, organizing purpose. As a boy of 
twelve, little comprehending, perhaps, what was before Him, 
He uttered the words, "Do you not know that I must be about 
my Father's business?" In the garden of Gethsemane, after 
He knew it all, He said, "My Father — thy will be done." 

To seek to understand what those three tumultuous years 
in the life of Jesus have meant to humanity and should mean 
to us to-day — this is the purpose of our study. 



22 



CHAPTER II 

THE BEGINNINGS 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

i. John the Baptist. 

a. His birth and silent years. Luke 1 15-25, 57-80. 

b. His ministry. Mt. 3:1-12, Mk. 1:1-8, Luke 3:1-20. 

c. His last message, Mt. 11:2-11, and his death, Mt. 

14:1-12. 

2. The baptism of Jesus. Mt. 3:13-17, Mk. 1:9-11, Luke 

3 :2I-22. 

3. The temptation of Jesus. Mt. 4:1-11, Mk. 1:12-13, Luke 
4:1-13. 

I. Preparing for Citizenship. 

1. Characterize John. 

2. In what way did his silent years differ from the silent 
years of Jesus? How did his wilderness experience fit him 
for announcing the Kingdom? 

3. Suggest some reasons why John was simply the great 
herald of the New Order and not a citizen of it (cf. Mt. 
11 :n). 

4. Recalling the contrast between the silent years of Jesus 
and John, enumerate the different elements which make up 
an ideal preparation for citizenship in the New Order. 

23 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

II. The Call of the New Order. 

i. Look for the principal points in John's message. Just 
what was it that drew Jesus to John? 

2. Does John's message meet the world situation to-day, 
with regard to the hope of a new world order, the desire for 
social and political justice, the need for Christ-like leader- 
ship? 

3. Grapple with the problem of what Jesus' call meant to 
Him. Is there a sense in which conditions to-day constitute 
a like call? 

4. How are the temptations of Jesus typical of our temp- 
tations as we face worthy life aims? Is the temptation to 
self -gratification real in daily experience? How does popu- 
larity constitute a temptation? Think of concrete ways in 
which the temptation to compromise manifests itself. 



I. The Herald of the New Order. 

John, than which man a sadder or a greater 
Not till this day has been of woman born : 

John, like some lonely peak by the Creator 
Fired with the red glow of the rushing morn. 

— F. W. H. Myers. 

The name John carries with it a certain atmosphere of 
rugged sincerity and strength, of honesty and serviceableness. 
No single individual ever did more to give this common name 
its honest fearless sound than did John, "the Baptizer," who 
from his desert solitude stepped into the midst of men with 

24 



THE BEGINNINGS 

a challenging message which caught the attention of all 
Palestine. 

He was known in those days for his own sake, but we 
must always think of him in connection with Jesus. And 
perhaps it is by setting John over against Jesus that we 
shall come to understand him. Like Jesus, John had breathed 
in the quiet, devout spirit, the earnest expectations which 
characterized the very finest type of Jewish home (Luke 
1*5-25; 57-8o). He must have known how his own birth 
had been associated with the noblest patriotic hopes of the 
day (Luke i:i5ff and 68ft). 

But aside from this, the lives of Jesus and John were 
sharply contrasted. John's father was a priest and as a boy 
he doubtless spent long hours studying the priestly lore, while 
Jesus during those same years was learning the builder's 
trade. John lived in the "hill country" of Judea (Luke 
i*39)> where nature was far more severe than the friendly 
Galilean country. Judean hills made men independent and 
fearless, but they did not tend to draw them close together. 
At any rate, John left the haunts of men and went out into 
the desert "till the time came for him to appear publicly to 
Israel." (Luke 1 :8o, Weymouth.) And during those days 
and years when Jesus was leading the busy life of a master 
carpenter in Galilee, John was alone in the desert, feeding 
his soul on the sterner elements of Old Testament prophecy. 
His school was the solitude, his companions the wild beasts, 
his teacher the God of the prophets of old. 

When John broke silence he quickly became the outstanding 
figure of the day. Like the great prophets who had gone 
before him he was extremely sensational. He could afford 
to be sensational because he had something to say. Prophecy 

25 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

was a mission, not an occupation, with John. Just as Isaiah 
caught the ear of the Judean grape growers by appearing as 
a ballad singer with the song of his friend's vineyard 
(Isaiah 5), just as Amos must have drawn rounds of applause 
by condemning Israel's unpopular neighbors (Amos 1, 2), so 
John got a hearing by appearing in the uncouth garb of the 
wilderness (Mk. 1:6), strangely like the dress of the great 
Elijah (II Kings 1:8), whose return, many believed, was to 
usher in the Kingdom. 

Instantly there was tremendous excitement in the land. 
Crowds flocked to hear him (Mark 1:5). And the message 
he had to give was no less sensational than his appearance. 
It was no pleasant word, for as he saw these multitudes 
pouring out from Jerusalem and all Judea he did not say, 
"I'm glad to see so many of you here to-day." Rather, he 
pointed out their sins. "O vipers' brood, who has warned 
you to flee from the coming wrath?" (Luke 3:8, Weymouth) 
were the words he used to describe the Pharisees. People 
must have winced under the lash of his tongue, but they 
stayed to hear and be baptized, common folk, proud Phari- 
sees, aristocratic Sadducees, for there was a compelling au- 
thority about this prophet and he had something to say that 
thrilled every heart. 

II. The Message of John. 

The remarkable outpouring of people to hear this rude 
man of the desert was due in the first place to his announce- 
ment that the Kingdom of God was at hand. It was a call 
to hope. That was a welcome word to every Jew. It meant 
that Jehovah was coming to judge the nations and to deliver 
his people; that the hated Roman rule was to be cast of! and 

26 



THE BEGINNINGS 

Israel restored. There were many who longed for "the 
day," there were some who may have timidly believed it was 
close at hand, but here was a ringing authoritative voice 
announcing its imminence. 

Yet John's message was more than a call to hope, it was a 
call to conscience. With stinging words he cut into their 
national complacency and racial exclusiveness. They were 
given no opportunity to gloat over the reversal of things 
which was to be — Jew exalted, Roman subjected — for like a 
pistol-shot rang out John's word, repent ! "Repent," said 
John, "in view of the coming Kingdom ! Get ready ! For 
judgment will not be upon Gentiles alone, but upon Israel." 
This call to conscience was disconcerting, but underneath the 
layers of formalism which the Pharisees had superimposed, 
the moral genius of the Hebrews still lived. They heard 
again the great formula of the prophets, Religion means 
Righteousness. How it challenged them Luke graphically 
tells us. 

(In the Weymouth translation) : — Accordingly John used 
to say to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, "O 
vipers' brood, who has warned you to flee from the coming 
wrath? Live lives which shall prove your change of heart; 
and do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham 
as our forefather,' for I tell you that God can raise up 
descendants for Abraham from these stones. And even now 
the ax is lying at the root of the trees, so that every tree 
which fails to yield good fruit will quickly be hewn down 
and thrown into the fire." The crowds repeatedly asked him, 
"What then are we to do?" 

"Let the man who has two coats," he answered, "give one to 

27 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

the man who has none; and let the man who has food share 
it with others." 

There came also a party of tax-gatherers to be baptized, 
and they asked him, "Rabbi, what are we to do?'" 

"Do not exact more than the legal amount," he replied. 

The soldiers also once and again inquired of him, "And we, 
what are we to do?" 

His answer was, "Neither intimidate any one nor lay false 
charges ; and be content with your pay" (Luke 3 7-14, Wey- 
mouth). 

The herald's task was not complete. It was inevitable that 
his message of hope and righteousness should arouse the 
latent Messianic expectations of the people. There were 
questionings on all sides. "Is this Messiah?" (Luke 3:15.) 
Finally the queries reached the ears of John. Picture his 
dismay! In shocked surprise he shrinks from the idea. 
"Not I, not I, but mightier than I is the coming one." All the 
stern elements of prophecy which the lad John had learned 
at his priestly father's feet and had found congenial in his 
desert solitude burst into flame as he sought to picture the 
coming Messiah. Read Luke 3:16, 17. As we try to fit this 
picture to the life of Jesus, we read a deeper meaning into 
the words of John's Gospel, "And I knew him not" (John 
1:31). Truly John did not understand the One who was to 
come, but in his own self-abnegation he sent forth the last 
great note of his herald's message, a call for leadership. 

III. An Estimate of John. 

The John of the Judean hills was not adequate for the con- 
structive task of building a new World Order. He saw the 
flaws in the Old Order, — the narrow complacency, the super- 

28 



THE BEGINNINGS 

ficial religiosity, the want of common justice and mercy, and 
he condemned it fearlessly and with tremendous effectiveness. 
And when his task was done, with a humility as rare as it 
was line, he voiced the need of all humanity for a Leader, 
and stepped aside. Like Amos, who came from the same 
Judean hills, he gave his message and retired into the shad- 
ows. He had finished his task. 

The greatness of John cannot be a matter of doubt to him 
for whom the words of Jesus are authoritative. In the midst 
of Jesus' ministry, John sends from his prison cell to know 
if Jesus is really the Coming One (Mt. n :2, 3). The mission 
and message of Jesus seem of such a different nature than he 
had expected. Jesus sends back an answer well calculated to 
relieve his perplexity, and then, turning to the crowd, He 
seems to defend John against any charge of weakness or 
indecision, in striking words of eulogy: 

(In the Weymouth translation) : — When the messengers 
had taken their leave, Jesus proceeded to say to the multitude 
concerning John, 

"What did you go out into the desert to gaze at? A reed 
waving in the wind? But what did you go out to see? A 
man luxuriously dressed? Those who wear luxurious clothes 
are to be found in king's palaces. But why did you go out? 
To see a prophet? Yes, I tell you, and far more than a 
prophet. This is he of whom it is written, 

'"SEE, I AM SENDING MY MESSENGER BEFORE 
THY FACE, AND HE WILL MAKE THY ROAD READY 
BEFORE THEE' (Mai. 3:1). 

"I solemnly tell you that among all of woman born no 
greater has ever been raised up than John the Baptist; yet 

29 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

one who is of lower rank in the Kingdom of the Heavens 
is greater than he (Mt. 11:7-11, Weymouth)." 

John's tragic end came as the result of his fearless denun- 
ciation of the sins of Herod (Mt. 14:3-12), and the words 
which follow in Matthew's gospel (14:13) add a beautiful 
and touching note in their portrayal of Jesus' sincere grief 
at the death of his friend. It was at the tidings of his death 
that Jesus turned from the multitude and with the little group 
of the inner circle sought solitude. Could they have done 
otherwise than quietly talk together of this herald of the 
New Order, and his life of service? 

IV. John and Jesus. 

We last saw Jesus in Galilean Nazareth, engaged in the 
absorbing tasks of a builder, moving acceptably among his 
neighbors, responding to the busy life of that small city, 
yet not unaware of the greater world of men and its com- 
plex problems. We thought of his inner life during those 
silent years and wondered if that glorious boyhood purpose 
was ever crushed by the weight of common tasks and by 
the dullness of routine. Did He ever ask, When will my 
time come ? 

And now we have the answer. At the age of thirty, 
in the full consciousness of mature powers, having real- 
ized the promise of those early days in physical, intellec- 
tual, social and spiritual development, Jesus of Nazareth 

" placed the tools in order, and shut to 

And barred for the last time the humble door." 

His time had come. 

30 



THE BEGINNINGS 

No single event in his life is more fascinating than this 
call to a larger service. The call came to Him in a simple 
and natural way and yet irresistibly. John's was pre- 
cisely the type of message to which the boy Jesus of the 
temple, now grown to manhood, must needs respond. John's 
call to hope, "The Kingdom is close at hand," was the 
very note which had set Jesus' face steadfastly toward his 
Father's business back there in the temple. The hope of a 
New Order would challenge Jesus from every viewpoint. 

Think how the vision of world democracy, the thirst for a 
lasting and righteous peace, the hunger for social justice, 
is moving all men of good will to-day ! Was it something 
as deep and powerful which moved Jesus when John's 
urgent call for the coming of the New Order sounded out? 
But even more would he respond to John's call to conscience. 
A moral reform was stirring in little Palestine, and even in 
Galilee its influence was distinctly felt. Galileans were flock- 
ing to the Jordan, undoubtedly Jesus' own neighbors among 
them. Pharisees had talked about a New Order to come. 
What could one do about it? Nothing, except to keep the 
law and the traditions. But John had a different answer to 
that query. What can one do ? Get ready for the New Order. 
And that means clean hands and pure hearts. It was in 
confession of their sins and in genuine desire to be morally 
fit that so many Jews submitted to "the Baptizer's" simple 
rite. Think you that Jesus could stay in Nazareth when 
a movement like this was on foot? 

But more compelling than the urgent, authoritative note 
of hope and the clear challenge to the conscience, was that 
other thrilling note in John's message, the call for leadership. 
"Are you Messiah?" they asked of John. "Not I, not I," 

3i 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

he answered, "but One mightier than I is coming, whose very 
sandal strap I am not worthy to unfasten." May not Jesus 
have felt already stirring within Himself the consciousness 
that his Father's business led in the direction of the fulfil- 
ment of John's lofty anticipations? Was He to be the 
great leader of this New Order? 

V. The Father's Business. 

Thus it came about that Jesus stood one day with the others 
on the banks of the Jordan. Mark tells what happened in 
language so severely simple and concise that it becomes the 
most impressive of the gospel accounts. It is as though the 
writer were saying, "This is what took place. The event 
itself is so tremendous that it needs no adornment or expan- 
sion in the telling." 

(In the Weymouth translation) : — At that time Jesus came 
from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the 
Jordan; and immediately on his coming up out of the water 
He saw an opening in the sky, and the Spirit like a dove 
coming down to Him; and a voice came from the sky, 
saying, 

"Thou art My Son dearly loved: in Thee is My delight" 
(Ps. 2:7; Isa. 42:1). (Mark 1:9, 10, 11, Weymouth.) 

Think how this incident found its way into the gospel 
record. Perhaps Jesus Himself first revealed its inner mean- 
ing. Who else could have known? Months afterward, when 
He had turned from the public ministry in Galilee and was 
giving all his time and thought to that little group of follow- 
ers, He unfolded to them in beautiful symbolism the signifi- 
cance of that day. 

32 



THE BEGINNINGS 

What did it mean for Jesus? Shorn of the imagery so 
difficult for the western mind, it stands forrii clearly as 
the beginning of Jesus' life work. That day Sonship came 
to its vocation. As the boy Jesus had known with unmis- 
takable clearness that his life was to be spent at his Father's 
business, so Jesus in the full maturity of his perfect man- 
hood, knew what the Father's business was to be and his own 
place therein. The Father's business which should claim his 
life was the bringing in of that New Order which John had 
heralded. From the moment of the baptism Jesus' life and 
teaching center about the coming of the Kingdom of God, 
the new World Order which was the dominant hope of all 
men of good will. 

How close home it brings Him to our own day! God's 
business on this earth has always been the establishment of 
a new and better order of life, and Jesus, nineteen centuries 
ago, gave Himself to that task. This humble peasant min : 
gled with the throng and went down into the muddy waters 
of the Jordan in unreserved dedication to this tremendous 
hope. 

It was revealed to Jesus on that day not only what his 
Father's business was to be but his own place therein. His 
was to be the place of supreme leadership. John's call for 
a leader had not been in vain. Jesus of Nazareth was the 
answer. 

The words in which the heavenly message has come down 
to us are significant. "Thou art my son dearly loved : in 
thee is my delight" (Mark I :n, W T eymouth). They come from 
two Old Testament passages, both expressive of the age-long 
hope of the Hebrews, and yet so strangely different that our 

33 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

thought is challenged by the contrast. The first phrase, 
"Thou art my son," is a quotation from the second Psalm. 
The picture is that of Israel's ideal king. 

Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my son ; 
This day have I begotten thee. 

Ask of me, and I will give thee the nations for thine 
inheritance, 
And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; 
Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. 

(Psalm 2:7-9.) 

Compare John's striking picture of the "mighty" one (Luke 
3:9, 16, 17). Power, majesty, dominion, almost ruthless in 
its severity — these are the characteristics of both pictures. 
Was Jesus such a leader? Now turn to the other phrase, 
"in thee is my delight." Apparently this phrase comes from 
the forty-second chapter of Isaiah. 

Behold, my servant, whom I uphold; my chosen, in whom 
my soul delighteth : I have put my spirit upon him ; he will 
bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry, nor lift 
up his voice, nor cause it to be heard in the street. A bruised 
reed will he not break, and a dimly burning wick will he 
not quench: he will bring forth justice in truth. He will 
not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set justice in the 
earth; and the isles shall wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:1-4.) 

Does this fit more accurately the life of Jesus? What a 
paradox is here : mastery, dominion, power, oil the one hand ; 
service, patience, suffering, on the other. May we not seek 
to understand as we see his life and teaching unfolding, how 

34 



THE BEGINNINGS 

Jesus solved this paradox and revealed the way to mastery 
through service, and to Lordship through suffering? 

At least three things are clear about Jesus' baptismal ex- 
perience. First, He dedicated Himself unreservedly to the 
New Order and its coming as the business of his life. Sec- 
ond, in that act of dedication He received a call to the 
supreme place of leadership in the New Order. Third, some- 
thing of the nature of that leadership was made clear to 
Him. It was to gain its potency through service to the point 
of suffering, that justice and truth might be the possessions 
of all nations. 

VI. The Temptation of Jesus. 

The temptation is but the reverse side of the supreme 
experience we have just been studying. Read the vivid 
accounts in Luke and Matthew (4:1-13; 4:1-11). Once again 
we have Jesus' own account to his disciples, for no one 
else could have told it. The picture language conveys like 
a flash to the brain of the Oriental meanings that we gain 
only through more prosaic channels, and here Jesus is evi- 
dently using graphic symbols to describe his temptation ex- 
perience. 

Mark tells us that it was the "Spirit" that impelled Him 
to go out into the desert (Mark 1:12). Fired with an intense 
desire for the coming of the New Order, He sought the 
solitude that He might commune with that Father whose 
business now engaged his whole thought. 

How should the New Order be inaugurated? How might 
He win men to it and still preserve its fair and just ideals? 
The temptations came in connection with real life prob- 
lems. They are the temptations that assail all manhood and 

35 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Womanhood as it faces worthy life tasks, and they consti- 
tute one of the strongest bonds that bind Jesus to his fellows. 

In reality the temptation is but one, though it shows three 
beads. It is a temptation to lack of faith in God and his 
way. Jesus, through the very passion of his longing, for 
the New Order, felt the force of every short cut or apparent 
substitute for God's own way of bringing it in. But in 
each instance He resolutely put the tempting program aside, 
committing Himself anew to the will of God. 

In the first phase of the temptation He reaffirmed his 
allegiance to the fundamental law that self -gratification has 
no place in the New Order. It may cause full stomachs 
for the few but it means empty souls for the many (Mt. 
4:4). See with what insistence Jesus proclaimed that law 
of the New Order throughout his teaching (Mt. 16:24; Luke 
I2:i6ff). Is that a necessary law in the New Order that men 
dream of to-day? 

The next phase (Mt. 4:5ff) was the temptation to gain 
a following by spectacular means, by catering to the ideas 
of the time. How passionately Jesus yearned that men in 
large numbers might enlist in the New Order! (Mt. 23:37.) 
Why not gain a quick popularity? But He saw the differ- 
ence between an outward following and a spiritual allegiance, 
and chose the harder, longer path. The New Order must not 
be based upon insecure foundations. 

And finally (Mt. 4:8ff) He set his face against all com- 
promise with evil, knowing that not only does the means 
fail to justify the end, but that He who adopts wrong means 
never reaches the right end. Once again He declared his 
unswerving devotion to the cause of God in the world. 

"So the devil, having fully tried every kind of temptation 

36 



THE BEGINNINGS 

on Him, left Him for a time" (Luke 4:12, Weymouth). 
Luke in his phrase "for a time" suggests that these tempta- 
tions recurred. Jesus had won the first victory for the New 
Order, and from this time forth He marked out its course 
in perfect alignment with the Father's will. 

VII. The Beginnings of the New Order. 

For nineteen centuries these events, the preaching of John, 
the call and temptation of Jesus, have meant to Christian 
people no less than the beginnings of a new and better order 
of life upon this earth. John with his challenge to hope, to 
conscience and to leadership, Jesus with his dedication to 
that hope, his acceptance of that leadership, and his vic- 
torious allegiance to the divine purpose and plan — these have 
marked out the lines along which all progress toward the 
better order has moved. 

To-day in sorrow and pain, hatred and bitterness, serv- 
ice and sacrifice, the hope of the New Order is rising like 
an incoming tide in the hearts of men. 



37 



CHAPTER III 

THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

I. Jesus' Wisdom in Beginning the New Order. 

1. Review Chapter II and see how Jesus began his work 
by linking it up with a great popular movement. Do you 
think Jesus could approve of everything in this popular move- 
ment? What things could He approve of? 

2. Compare John's picture of the coming Messiah and 
Jesus' own idea of his mission, as set forth in the preceding 
chapter. How did these ideas differ? Now read Mk. 1:14, 
15. What agreements between John and Jesus do you find 
here? Are there any differences? 

3. Read John 4:1-3. What do these verses indicate con- 
cerning Jesus' relations with John? 

4. From the foregoing questions, summarize Jesus' atti- 
tude toward others and their ideas. Was it constructive or 
destructive? Was He looking for points of agreement or 
points of difference? 

5. Test your own attitude toward others. Do you make 
more of points of agreement or points of difference? How 
far is it possible to ignore differences? 

II. How to Deal with Apparent Failure. 

1. Read John 2:13-22; 2:23, 24; 4:1, 2. Note the ele- 
ments of failure in these references — hostility from religious 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

leaders, superficial acceptance by many ; danger of friction 
with John. Read Mt. 23 137 as a summarizing statement of 
Jesus' experiences in Jerusalem. 

2. These disheartening experiences came to Jesus at the 
very beginning of his ministry. How did He adjust his 
work to them? He could "give up" or "go on blindly" 
or "look for an open door." Which did He do? Read 
the simple statement in John 4:3. Was He giving up all 
hope of Jerusalem or simply waiting for a better opportu- 
nity and seeking a more receptive field? 

3. What hints for the individual who faces apparent 
failure are to be found here? Which is the part of wis- 
dom, "to give up" or "go on blindly" or "to look for an 
open door" ? 

III. How to Deal with Opposition and with Popularity. 

When Jesus left Judea and began his Galilean ministry 
He faced both popularity and opposition. Read Mk. 1 '.28, 
37, 38, 45 for evidences of the great popularity He aroused 
in Galilee. Glance over Mk. 2-3 :6 for evidences of decided 
opposition. 

1. Read Mk. 3:13-19. Jesus accepted the popularity as 
long as He could help the crowds but He did not value it 
too highly, and chose a smaller group to whom He could 
impart his real message. 

2. Read Mk. 4:10-12. See how He sifted the crowd by 
means of parables in order to attract only those who were 
genuinely interested. Moreover, the parables did nothing to 
increase the hostility of the religious leaders. 

3. How much is popularity worth? Is it an end in itself 
or a by-product? How is genuine popularity acquired? Is 

39 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

it possible to gain popularity by direct effort? What are 
the tests of popularity? Is antagonism unavoidable? What 
would the experience of Jesus indicate? How far should 
one go in avoiding hostility? 

IV. The Statesmanship of Sacrifice. 

Read Mk. 8:31-38, esp. vs. 35; John 12: 23, 24. 

What is the final test of devotion to a cause? What is the 
convincing power of willingness to die for a cause? What 
are the values worth dying for? How many are included 
in the New Order of Christ? How is it possible to express 
one's willingness to die for Christ's Kingdom where the 
demand is to live a commonplace, undramatic life? What 
does it mean to lose one's life in a cause? 



The New Order outlined by Jesus needs not only citizens 
but statesmen, and as Jesus Himself is the ideal citizen of 
the New Order, so also Fie embodies those qualities of states- 
manship which must characterize Christian leadership to-day. 

We rarely think or speak of Jesus as a statesman. We 
meditate upon his perfection of character more than upon 
his practical handling of the actual problems of life. And 
yet the latter is a part of the former. We think of his 
goodness more than of his wisdom. Yet his keen insight 
into the conditions of his own day and the marvelous way 
in which He gave his message so that men could never 
forget it, are worthy of the same careful study which we 
give to his deeply spiritual messages. 

Jesus was a statesman of the highest type. Without 

40 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

formal education in either statecraft or religion He launched 
a movement destined to affect all subsequent history. He 
was bitterly opposed by both church and state. The power- 
ful religious leaders of his own people, supreme in all 
religious matters and all but supreme in civil affairs, tried 
their best to crush this Galilean. They set in motion all 
the political and ecclesiastical machinery at their command. 
They exerted every energy to make Palestine forget about 
Jesus and his New Order. To ensure this oblivion for Him, 
they put Him to death. But He was not passive during 
the intrigues of the Pharisees. He held the situation in 
his own hand, and went to Jerusalem with a clear-eyed 
knowledge of the probable fate awaiting Him there. He 
went to establish the New Order by that act of self-sacrifice 
at the nation's heart His death was at once the inaugura- 
tion of the New Order and the doom of every old order 
which leaves Him out of account. 
It is this statesmanship of Jesus which we need to study. 

I. A Statesmanlike Beginning. 

It is significant that Jesus waited until He was "about 
thirty years of age" before He began any public work. 
Years before that time He must have burned with desire 
to serve his people and to find his own task in the world. 
But He waited on at Nazareth until He was thirty years 
old, not, of course, because there was any magic in that 
particular number of years, but because the time was not 
ripe. 

How quickly He responded when the word came to Galilee 
of the remarkable personality and messages of John the 
Baptist! All Palestine was aroused by the sensational an- 

4i 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

nouncement that the Kingdom was at hand and the equally 
sensational requirement of repentance in view of its near- 
ness. Jesus immediately left the carpenter's bench and 
made his way to the Jordan with the multitudes. He saw 
in John's straightforward preaching and in the eager way 
in which the people of all classes responded to it exactly 
the conditions which made possible a wider and more last- 
ing movement than even John contemplated. We have 
thought, in an earlier chapter, of the baptism and tempta- 
tion of Jesus as revealing his inner experiences, but let us 
look at them now from the viewpoint of his statesmanship. 
The moral appeal of John and the manner in which He 
sharpened the hopes of the people and aroused in them 
an eager expectancy of better things seemed to challenge 
Jesus to meet that widespread sense of hope and of need. 
He did not hesitate for a moment to make use of a tre- 
mendous popular movement which was sweeping the coun- 
try. In fact, He seems to have been waiting for just such 
a movement before He launched his own mission. 

Then think how Jesus linked his work with John's mes- 
sage. We do not read far before discovering that there 
were wide differences between John's idea of the New Order 
and that held by Jesus. The principal element in the New 
Order as John conceived it was to be a thorough-going 
judgment (Mt. 3:10) and the Christ was to be a mighty 
Judge (Mt. 3:11, 12), but Jesus stressed service and mercy 
more than judgment. 

Had Jesus been less of a statesman than He was, He 
might have felt called upon to correct these ideas and set 
John right at the beginning. Instead, He selected those 
notes in John's message which He could thoroughly approve 

42 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

and which had already won the attention of the multitudes., 
and began his own work by emphasizing them (Mk. 1:15). 
He began by discovering the large points of agreement be- 
tween Himself and John and for the time ignored the points 
of difference. The master builder of Nazareth was con- 
structive, and not destructive. 

II. Facing Apparent Failure. 

It was natural that Jesus should begin his work in Judea. 
Jerusalem was the heart of the Jewish state and any re- 
former seeking to influence the nation would naturally begin 
there. It was not, then, a mark of unusual statesmanship 
that Jesus began his work at the nation's capital. His wis- 
dom is revealed in the way in which He adjusted his 
further movements to the reception He received in Judea. 
For the early Judean ministry must have been judged by 
many to be a disappointing failure. 

We may well suppose that Jesus approached the idealized 
religious capital of Judaism with high hopes. It stood for 
all the best in the nation's glorious history. In his own 
experience it symbolized the great spiritual awakening of his 
boyhood days. But He found the very temple courts where 
as a boy of twelve He had sat listening to the scholars 
transformed into a place of barter and legalized graft. 
And more than that, when He drove o^ut the traders by 
the force of his righteous wrath, aided we may suppose 
by the sympathy of the people who were being fleeced and 
the guilty consciences of the greedy commercialists, He 
found Himself confronted by the religious leaders who' 
should have been the first to come to his support. Their 
attitude was cold, critical, hostile. The entire incident must 

43 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

have been a disheartening experience for Jesus (John 2:13- 
22). 

In addition, John tells us that the people who believed 
on Jesus were moved by superficial motives (2:23). And 
finally, as a last straw there is a hint that there was a 
danger of strained relations with John because of the popu- 
larity of Jesus, superficial though it was (John 4:1, 2). It 
is hard to imagine a more disheartening set of circumstances 
— opposed by the religious leaders, misunderstood by those 
who accepted Him and with a rivalry threatening to mar 
the very friendship which had made possible the beginnings 
of his work! 

The gospels do not tell us of Jesus' heartache over Judea 
until the last days of his ministry, when in one passionate 
lament He sums up his anguish of heart, "O Jerusalem, 
Jerusalem! thou who murderest the prophets and stonest 
those who have been sent to thee ! how often have I desired 
to gather thy children to me, just as a hen gathers her 
chickens under her wings, and you would not come!" (Mt. 

23 :37«) 

But if Jesus was disappointed at the reception accorded 
Him in Jerusalem He did not abandon his work on that 
account. The real quality of his statesmanship stands re- 
vealed in the manner in which He met that rebuff. "He 
left Judea and departed again into Galilee" (John 4:1-3). 
There were other ways of gaining the ears of Palestine 
than by direct assault upon the nation's center. 

Galilee, with its more liberal spirit, offered just the oppor- 
tunity Jesus wanted. The very physical features of the 
country, its open, fertile fields and rolling highlands, the 
great international highways which passed through it, meant 

44 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

a more open-minded receptive people. The influence of the 
Pharisees was not so dominant in Galilee and something of 
the rigidity of Judean legalism and ceremonial was lack- 
ing there. And so, having challenged Judea in such a way 
as to attract the attention if not the acceptance of the capital, 
Jesus turned with statesmanlike acumen to the north. 

III. Popularity and Opposition. 

The ministry of Jesus in Galilee is a fascinating study 
of practical statesmanship. It has become associated in our 
minds with the sermon on the mount and the parables by 
the sea until we fail to emphasize the consummate skill with 
which Jesus gauged the human forces with which He was 
dealing. These human forces manifested themselves in two 
directions, growing popularity and growing opposition. Both 
these movements constituted a menace tp his real purposes 
and the genius with which He handled them will bear com- 
parison with the highest types of political skill. 

Jesus met with instant popularity in Galilee. We have 
only to read through the first chapter of Mark to come across 
such verses as, "His fame spread at once everywhere in all 
that part of Galilee" (vs. 28, Weymouth) and, "When they 
found him they said, Every one is looking for you." "Let 
us go elsewhere, to the neighboring country towns," He 
replied, "that I may proclaim my message there also" (vss. 
37, 3$, Weymouth) ; and after the healing of the leper, "The 
man, when he went out, began to tell every one and to 
publish the matter abroad, so that it was no longer possible 
for Jesus to go openly into any town; but he had to remain 
outside in unfrequented places, where people came to him 
from all parts" (vs. 45, Weymouth). 

45 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

With the growing popularity came growing opposition. 
We shall note in another chapter Mark's summary of the 
. development of the hostility of the religious leaders (Mk. 
2-3 :6) . Their bitterness is traced in each stage of its devel- 
opment. At the healing of the paralytic borne of four (Mk. 
2:1-12) their attack is spontaneous and based on high re- 
ligious grounds. "Who can forgive sins but one, even 
God?" But in the case of the man with the withered hand 
(Mk. 3:1-6) their attack is deliberate, "they watched him" 
(vs. 2), and is based merely on traditional grounds. The 
climax of their attack occurs when scribes from Jerusalem 
(Mk. 3 :22ff) assert that Jesus' motive and spirit are essen- 
tially evil. With this attack Jesus sees that the break is 
final and declares that an attitude which deliberately twists 
good into evil is unpardonable. The- growth in the popular 
approval of Jesus comes more slowly, but we see its climax 
in the attempt to make Him king by force, which He avoids, 
withdrawing from the crowds (John 6:1^). 

Jesus saw both these movements and was not deceived by 
either of them. He knew that the crowds who came to Him 
were largely moved by a desire for bread or relief from 
physical ailments. His great heart of compassion would not 
let Him turn people away hungry or sick, even though He 
understood full well that "man shall not live by bread 
alone," but He was not dazzled or confused by the crowds 
that flocked to Him. His mission was to bring in the New 
Order, which meant first of all the rule of God in men's 
hearts, and then through them a ministry to the social needs 
of humanity. 

A lesser leader would have thought the eager crowds 
spelled success. But in the very midst of this glad accept- 

46 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

ance and enthusiasm, Jesus chose twelve men to be with 
him (Mk. 3:13-19). He was looking beyond this passing 
popularity. With the clear-eyed vision of a statesman He 
saw the need of a group of men, even though few in num- 
ber, who should catch his spirit and interpret his message 
to the world. 

He knew exactly what the hostility of the Pharisees meant, 
also. The plaudits of the crowds lulled Him into no false 
sense of security. These crowds would scatter with the first 
threatening storm, and behind the carping criticisms of the 
Pharisees rose the black thunder cloud of organized Juda- 
ism in all its menace and might. It was a time to test not 
only his courage and loyalty but also his wisdom and skill. 
He was not yet ready to face his foes, not because He 
feared them but because He dared not trust his message 
as yet to the few who were really beginning to share his 
vision of the New Order. 

With marvelous insight into the situation He changed 
his whole method of teaching. Until the climax of the 
Pharisees' hostility, his teaching had been clear and definite, 
enlivened by many a witty allusion and illuminated by many 
a telling story. Now He begins to teach in parables with 
the express purpose of sifting his crowd (Mk. 4:12). 

These parables offered nothing for the hostile Pharisees 
to use and they did not feed the sensational and political 
hopes of the crowds. They accomplished exactly what 
He had in mind, for Mark tells us that "when He was alone, 
they that were about Him with the twelve asked Him to 
explain the parables" (Mk. 4:10). He had succeeded in 
sifting the crowd and in gaining a smaller and more deeply 

47 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

interested group, to whom He could reveal the deeper things 
of the New Order, its real spirit and meaning. 

IV. The Withdrawal Into the North. 

The public ministry in Galilee closed with conditions 
which outwardly resembled the results of the early Jerusalem 
ministry. The religious authorities were thoroughly alienated 
and the crowds were dropping away. Jesus' teaching had 
become too deep for them. Even some of the outer circle 
of disciples seem to have fallen away, for after one of his 
most spiritual discourses we read that "many of his disciples 
left Him and went away, and no longer associated with 
Him" (John 6:66, Weymouth). But in reality the situation 
was quite different from those early days. When some of 
the disciples left Him, Jesus turned to the twelve and 
asked, "Will you go, too?" "Master," Simon Peter an- 
swered, "to whom shall we go? You have the words of 
eternal life." 

He had created in that small group a loyalty upon which 
He could build. That splendid loyalty was the fruit of his 
months of labor in Galilee. Was it worth the effort? Can 
we think of Jesus as a statesman when He succeeded only 
in winning the abiding loyalty of twelve average men? And 
yet He entrusted the fate of the New Order to these twelve 
men, and although they stumbled and almost fell they did 
not fail Him. 

With the conclusion of the public ministry in Galilee 
Jesus deliberately turned his back on the multitudes and 
withdrew into the rougher highlands of upper Galilee. There 
He gave Himself to the instruction of the twelve. At last 
came the day when He put to them the question for which 

48 



THE STATESMANSHIP OP JESUS 

He had been preparing them all along. Mark tells the 
incident with his customary simplicity: 

On the way He began to ask his disciples, Who do people 
say that I am? John the Baptist, they replied, but others say, 
Elijah, and others, that it is one of the prophets. Then He 
asked them pointedly, But you yourselves, who do you say 
that I am? You are the Christ, answered Peter. 

That confession gains its tremendous importance in Jesus' 
life from the historical situation. The very circumstances 
in the midst of which Peter made his bold statement give 
it its importance. Jesus had been rejected by the church, 
the state and the common people. To confess Him as the 
leader of the New Order was to confess that the New Order 
itself was not the political kingdom the people expected, 
not the material, nationalistic kingdom of the Pharisees,- but 
that it was a new spiritual order. In a high moment of 
inspiration Peter and the rest seem to have understood 
faintly at least the mission and the message of their Master. 

They could not read that New Order in terms of the 
death of Jesus, however. Their very loyalty to Him blinded 
their eyes until they could not see how his death was to 
mean the ultimate victory and triumph. They could not 
understand how his death would reveal to them, and to 
all men who follow in his steps, the infinite love of God 
who so loved the world that He gave his only Son. 

They could not understand how his death would reveal 
sin in all its blackness and horror and how they would 
come to see in the fact of Christ's Cross the double revela- 
tion of God's infinite love for humanity and of his hatred 
of sin. Nor could they know that his death would mean 

49 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

release for them from their own burden of guilt and new 
power for living the life of the ideal citizen of the New 
Order. We will not censure them, for we ourselves have 
seen too dimly into the mystery of Jesus' death and the 
victory which came out of it. But patiently and repeatedly 
Jesus told them of the rapidly approaching crisis and what 
it must mean for Him (Mk. 8:31ft*; 9:30ft*; 10:32ft*). 

V. The Last Journey to Jerusalem. 

Jesus was never so truly the statesman as when "he 
steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51). 
All other doors were closed. He had given his message in 
Galilee. He had won from the disciples a confession of 
absolute allegiance and loyalty. And He had won this con- 
fession not in an hour of personal triumph, when the crowd 
applauded, but in an hour of loneliness and apparent de- 
feat. He must leave Palestine forever or face Jerusalem. 
And "he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem/' He 
would challenge the nation once again at its very heart 
He was conscious that He went to his death. But He knew 
that his death meant the release of his spirit for a wider 
service. 

"The time has come," He told certain of his disciples, 
"for the Son of Man to be glorified. In most solemn truth 
I tell you that unless the grain of wheat falls into the 
ground and dies, it remains what it was — a single grain; 
but that if it dies, it yields a rich harvest" (John 12:23, 
24, Weymouth). 

But in spite of his patient instruction, when the hour of 
his trial and death came, they could not understand. Their 
hearts were with Him, but Jerusalem and Rome seemed too 

50 



THE STATESMANSHIP OF JESUS 

mighty for their faith to battle against. He went to his 
death alone. Into that awful hour we may not go with 
Jesus. Who can say what the final battle meant to Him? 
It is enough for us that He emerged the victor from the 
last terrible struggle. We know that He faced death, even 
the death of the Cross, with a triumphant confidence that 
it was God's way of establishing the New Order. 

With the Easter morning the statesmanship of Jesus bore 
amazing results. Had the little group of followers quite 
lost hope? If with their heads they had failed Him, were 
not their hearts crying out, "Who shall separate us from 
Christ's love ? Neither death nor life !" To this group came 
the message of the empty tomb and the risen Lord. In 
a moment Jerusalem and Rome seemed powerless in com- 
parison with the hope and the joy of the New Order which 
was even then beginning to be. And the spirit of the great 
leader who had walked with them over Galilean hills and 
by the Galilean lakes took command again, to send them into 
all the world with the transforming message of his eternal 
Kingdom. 



51 



CHAPTER IV 

JESUS' IDEA OF THE NEW ORDER 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

i. Its unseen and spiritual character. Luke 17 :20, 21. 
Contrast John 6:15 and Mk. 12:13-17. 

2. Its universal scope. Mt. 8:5-13, esp. 10-12. 

3. Its fundamental law. Mt. 25:31-46; Mk. 9:35; Mk. 
io:35-45. 

4. Its gradual growth. Mt. 13:31-33; Mk. 4:30-32; Luke 
13:18, 19. 

5. Its transforming effect. Luke 13 :20, 21. 

6. Its progressive development. Mk. 4:26-29. 

7. Its inestimable value. Mt. 13 .-44-46. 

I. The New Order as a Kingdom. 

1. Think of the New Order as the Kingdom of God. Why 
did Jesus use that term? Would He have used it if He 
had come in our day? Can you think of a better term for 
our use? 

2. As a matter of fact, what form of government in 
our day best expresses the principles of the "Kingdom"? 
What was Jesus' characteristic name for the "King" (look 
through the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5-7, with this in 
view) and for the "subjects" in this Kingdom? What does 
this reveal concerning the New Order? 

52 



THE NEW ORDER 

II. Essentials of the New Order. 

i. What is the supreme law of the New Order by which 
all will be impartially judged? Is that the law by which 
persons are estimated in your group? 

2. Study Jesus' description of the great worth of the 
New Order. What are the values to-day for which men are 
willing to give all they possess? Are these values included 
in Jesus' Kingdom program? 

3. What encouragement is to be gained from the parables 
of slow yet persistent growth? How are these parables at 
the same time a severe test for the individual and social 
life? What about your own growth? 

4. In the light of the above questions, how would you 
define the New Order? Is it a thing or a spirit? Or is 
it a spirit seeking expression in things and among people? 



We have discussed the startling effect of John's an- 
nouncement that a New Order was imminent, and the 
way in which Jesus, far more quietly, assumed the place of 
leadership in this New Order. We have studied the match- 
less statesmanship of Jesus through the months that followed, 
even to the triumphant end. But why need we of the twen- 
tieth century be especially concerned about it? Is it any- 
thing more than a matter of antiquarian interest? Why 
bother ourselves about what took place in an outlandish 
corner of Syria so many centuries ago, when history is in 
the making so rapidly to-day? 

Men dreamed of a better day long before the time of 
Jesus, and the air has been full of visions and hopes since 

53 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

his time. Was his idea of the New Order so very different 
from these? Is it possible that the New Order He outlined 
will do as a program for to-day? Is it conceivable that our 
world is ripe for the New Order of Jesus? 

Questions like these lift our study out of the realm of 
academic thought into contact with the rushing currents of 
the world's life. We must approach the problem of the 
New Order as Jesus shaped it with a seriousness of purpose 
in keeping with the earnest issues of the hour. 

Some of these questions we may answer at once. There 
can be no possible question but that Jesus believed He was 
talking about something essentially different from what had 
gone before. Skilled teacher that He was, He began where 
John left off, but He knew that his program was a new and 
radical one. He said, in defending his disciples for failure 
to observe certain customs, "No one ever mends an old 
cloak with a patch of newly woven cloth. Otherwise the 
patch put on would tear away some of the old, and a worse 
hole would be made. Nor do people pour new wine into 
old wineskins. Otherwise the skins would split, the wine 
would escape, and the skins be destroyed. But they put new 
wine into fresh skins and both are saved" (Mt. 9:16, 17, 
Weymouth). In the Sermon on the Mount He repeatedly 
introduced his own teaching with the remark, "You have 
heard that it was said to the ancients" over against which 
in direct contrast He sets, "But I tell you." He conceived 
his plan of the New Order to be very different from the 
Old Order. He was not a destroyer, to be sure, but a builder, 
and He knew that the foundations already built afforded 
ample base for the new structure (Mt. 5:17), but the mate- 

54 



THE NEW ORDER 

rials were of his own choosing and He constructed it after 
God's plan. 

The question as to whether Jesus' conception of the New 
Order will do for our world affords the best approach to 
our study of just what Jesus meant by the New Order. 

I. The New Order a Kingdom or a Democracy? 

John had declared that, "the Kingdom of God is close 
at hand," and Jesus picked up that announcement just where 
John dropped it, and, sharpening the note of immediacy and 
adding a positive demand, He said, "The time is fully come 
and the Kingdom of God is close at hand; repent and believe 
this good news." 

The term both John and Jesus used was, "the Kingdom 
of God." It takes conscious effort for us to speak and 
think of the Kingdom of God in the same clear-cut and 
definite way in which the people of that day used it. To 
them it meant not some vague and mysterious thing but 
a very definite state of affairs upon this earth. They differed 
as to the way in which the Kingdom would come but they 
all agreed that God would establish it upon this earth. In- 
stead of the kingdom of Greece or Rome there would be 
the Kingdom of God. "And in the days of those kings 
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never 
be destroyed. . . . And the kingdom shall be given to the 
people of the saints of the Most High" (Daniel 2:44; 7:27). 
Jesus meant something very different from the material, 
political, national kingdom of the average Jew, but his ideal 
was not vague or insubstantial. 

But the very word kingdom seems to remove the idea 
from pur world and its needs. The passion of mankind 

55 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

to-day is not for another kingdom but for something to 
take the place of kingdoms, and even in nations ruled by 
kings the dominant hope is democracy. Will a New Order 
launched under the name of a kingdom suffice as our ideal? 

It has been said that "if our Lord had come to earth 
to-day instead of nineteen centuries ago, He would prob- 
ably have said never a word about the Kingdom of God, 
but would have spoken in other terms,' , yet "what He would 
have said to-day in the phrases of to-day would have had 
the same meaning as what He' did say in the phraseology 
of Jewish thought." * We must look closer to discover the 
inner meaning of the Kingdom. 

First of all, in the mind of Jesus it was the Kingdom 
of God. The absurdity and wrong of earthly kingdoms, to 
the mind of the average person, lie in the arbitrary eleva- 
tion of one mortal man to power over his fellow mortals. 
But the New Order which Jesus proclaimed as "good news" 
was to be characterized by the extension of the rule of God, 
already apparent in nature, to the realm of humanity. Its 
very basis was in the direction of everything reasonable 
and right. Granted that there is a God back of the orderly 
and matchless processes we call nature, the only thing worth 
while in the world is to discover his will and accomplish 
it among men. But everything depends upon the kind of king 
God is conceived to be. If He is a tyrant the Kingdom of 
God will turn out to be no more endurable than any other 
despotism. Here we shall come to the heart of Jesus' idea 
of the New Order. 

Look through the gospels and find the name which Jesus 

* Hogg: Christ's Message of the Kingdom, page n. 

56 



THE NEW ORDER 

applies to God. Upon his lips the ancient terms of govern- 
ment and royalty are merged into those of the family. 
Jesus' characteristic name for God is not King but Father. 
So firmly did He fix that name upon the memory of his 
followers that the epistles of the New Testament beauti- 
fully speak of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ" (Romans 15:6). In the remarkable parable which 
has been called the parable of the great surprise (Mt. 25:31- 
46) He does use the regal title, but in such fashion as to 
make unmistakable the spirit of the Kingdom. It is a 
judgment scene in which the great King passes sentence 
upon all nations, but to the astonishment of those judged 
they are not accused or commended for their attitude toward 
court etiquette or royal decree but according to the manner 
in which they have treated the hungry, thirsty, homeless, 
ill-clad, sick and imprisoned. And to add to their surprise 
the King declares, "In solemn truth I tell you that in so far 
as you rendered such services to one of the humblest of 
these my brethren, you rendered them to me" (Mt 25:40, 
Weymouth). What manner of Kingdom is this? 

Jesus sharply contrasts the spirit of the Kingdom to the 
spirit observable in a despotism. "You are aware," He 
said, "how those who are deemed rulers among the Gen- 
tiles lord it over them and their great men make them feel 
their authority; but it is not to be so among you. No, 
whoever desires to be great among you must be your serv- 
ant" Oik. 10:42, 43). Jesus did not ignore the rightful 
ambitions of men but He pointed out the only direction 
in which personal ambition can have unlimited scope in the 
New Order, the direction of service. 

Moreover, as God is not King but Father, so the men 

57 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

of the Kingdom are not called subjects but sons, and in 
their relationship to each other they are brothers. Jesus did 
not leave this side of his teaching visionary but actually 
created a small group of followers whom He bound into 
a fellowship which was the promise of this wider brother- 
hood. 

In these ways Jesus transformed the term Kingdom. By 
using that term He spoke to all the best in the past of the 
Jews but in every use of it He broadened and deepened its 
application until we are forced to see that He was not think- 
ing of an archaic form of political government which a world 
weary of dynastic wars and social injustice is about to throw 
off like a worn-out cloak, but He was thinking of a spiritual 
commonwealth in which a Fatherly God might express his 
beneficent will through brotherly men. 

Instead of the transient dream of a Galilean peasant, Jesus' 
New Order is a thrilling challenge to the present day. 

II. The Unseen and Spiritual Character of the New Order. 

Jesus called the New Order the Kingdom of God, but we 
have seen that God was not a despot or the men of the 
Kingdom subjects or the laws of the Kingdom tyrannical 
decrees. All this helps us to understand the spirit of the 
New Order, but what of its form? Is it a republic or a democ- 
racy, is it a socialistic state or does it mean anarchy and 
the abolition of all government? 

In our day men are mightily concerned about forms of 
government and we must ask what form this New Order of 
Jesus takes. Jesus was confronted by these same questions. 
There were burning political questions then as now, and by 
looking at his attitude toward them we may come to under- 

58 



THE NEW ORDER 

stand the New Order. We discover that He definitely avoided 
aligning the New Order with any form of political theory. 
Upon one occasion we read, "They were about to come and 
carry him off by force and make him a King, but Jesus with- 
drew" (John 6:15). Another time the Pharisees and Hero- 
dians, an unholy alliance, asked Him, Is it right to pay taxes 
to Caesar or not? thinking, If He says yes, that will dis- 
credit Him in the eyes of all who hate Rome, and if He 
says no, that will involve Him in difficulties with the govern- 
ment. Jesus saw through the plot and we can almost see 
his eyes twinkle with the genuine humor of the situation 
as He turned to them with, "As for you Pharisees, render 
to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and as for you 
Herodians, render to God the things that are God's" (cf. Mk. 

12:13-15). 

Apparently He would not commit the New Order to any 
outward form of government. From one point of view this 
just suited the Pharisees, for they thought it impossible to 
throw off the Roman yoke. Their ideas of the Kingdom were 
strictly materialistic and national, however, for they expected 
the Kingdom to come down out of the heavens, by the 
miraculous act of God, and then to be established upon 
earth for Jews and Jews only, and they were always specu- 
lating about the signs and portents which should announce 
its coming. But Jesus seems to have refused just as definitely 
to align his New Order with their idea. 

It is in contrast to the Pharisees' conception of the new 
order that Jesus made the most illuminating statement to be 
found anywhere in the gospels concerning his conception of 
the Kingdom. They had asked about its coming and appar- 
ently some were saying, It will come in this form, and 

59 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

others, It will come in that form, and then they came to 
Jesus with the question, What form do you think the King- 
dom will take? Jesus answered, The Kingdom of God will 
not be a form at all, and when you get this form of govern- 
ment or that order of political theory you won't be able 
to say, Behold here the Kingdom is or there it is, for the 
Kingdom of God is not a form of government, it is an 
inner spirit; the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20, 
21). In essence the New Order is unseen and spiritual. It 
works its way from the inside out and not from the outside 
in. 

This is not to say that Jesus' New Order is an intangible 
something, and that if He were here in human form to-day 
He would not be passionately interested in the rising tide 
of democracy in our world ; it is simply to say that He did 
not commit, the Kingdom to any political organization but 
that He did believe that the spirit of brotherhood in the 
hearts of his followers would create the type of government 
best suited to the expression of itself. 

The New Order is an unseen and spiritual commonwealth 
seeking to create in the world appropriate political and social 
forms for its adequate expression. 

III. Characteristics of the New Order. 

Jesus illustrated the characteristics of the New Order by the 
use of a wealth of figures and parables, each one of which 
adds to the picture as a whole. The symbols He used in 
describing the Kingdom are significant, in that they are the 
common and ever present realities of life. The words most 
frequently upon his lips are such terms as light, heaven, salt, 
seed, living water. He sought to convey in terms of the 

60 



THE NEW ORDER 

common life his great spiritual message. He was a true 
artist, not simply because of the rhetorical fitness and beauty 
of the symbols He chose, but because these symbols give us 
an insight into the inner meaning of the truth they are 
meant to convey. 

In speaking of the inestimable value of the New Order 
He said, it is like "treasure buried in the open country which 
a man finds, but buries again, and in his joy about it goes 
and sells all he has and buys that piece of ground," and 
similarly, it is like "a jewel merchant who is in quest of 
choice pearls. He finds one most costly pearl; he goes away; 
and though it costs all he has, he buys it" (Mt. 13: 44-46, 
Weymouth). These vivid parables seem to illustrate but one 
phase of the New Order, its priceless value, but the figures 
most frequently used set forth the New Order as a living, 
moving thing. How perfectly Jesus describes the gradual 
growth of the Kingdom in the parables of the mustard seed 
(Mt. 13:31, 32), the developing grain (Mk. 4:26-29), the 
wheat and tares! (Ait. 13:24-30.) 

Could a more telling vehicle for teaching the transform- 
ing effect, gradual yet persistent, of the Kingdom spirit be 
conceived than the parable of the yeast? 'To what shall I 
compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast which a 
woman takes and buries in a bushel of flour, to work there 
till the whole is leavened" (Luke 13:21, Weymouth). The 
New Order works quietly like the yeast. It persists until the 
whole is leavened. Just as the mass of dough rising and 
falling, the bubbles swelling and bursting, are only a proof 
of the active presence of the yeast, so the troubled surface 
of human history reveals the presence of the truth of God 
at work in the world, and we may take heart from the 

61 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

very upheavals of humanity. And the New Order, like the 
yeast, works by contagion. The yeast, insignificant in quan- 
tity compared with the mass of dough ; could never pervade 
the whole except that each tiny particle of leaven communi- 
cates itself to those particles nearest it. Similarly by con- 
tagion of character the New Order finds its growth. 

These parables of growth seem to suggest that the coming 
of the New Order depends upon the co-operation of men with 
God. As it is God whose earth and air and sunshine mature 
and foster the seed, so it is man whose planting and tending 
must render the gifts of God operative in human conditions. 
But even while realizing this responsibility, man need not 
be anxious for the fruitage, for that is in God's own hands : 
"The earth bears fruit of itself ; first the blade, then the 
ear, then the full grain in the ear" (Mk. 4:26-29). Jesus 
fully describes the part human effort will play in the coming 
of the New Order and this must be our study in a later 
chapter. 

Finally Jesus' characterization of the New Order lifted it 
out of its national and materialistic limitations into the realm 
of a universal commonwealth of the spirit. This appears 
almost as strikingly from his silences as from his utter- 
ances, for He has nothing to say about Rome or the over- 
throw of Israel's enemies or her triumphant rule. "What 
He has to say does not concern men as Jews but men as 
men." * Upon one occasion particularly, when the faith of a 
Roman captain was revealed, He solemnly declared in a memo- 
rable figure, "I tell you that many will come from the east and 
from the west and will recline at the table with Abraham, 

* Rail : New Testament History, p. 70. 

62 



THE NEW ORDER 

Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of the heavens, while the 
natural heirs of the Kingdom will be driven out into the 
darkness outside" (Mt 8:10-12). 

IV. The New Order an Individual and Social Reality. 

We have emphasized the New Order as something which is 
first of all inner and spiritual, but we suggested that Jesus' 
idea was no less concrete than the current conceptions, even 
though his Kingdom is neither nationalistic nor materialistic. 
It is very easy for us to volatilize the New Order of Jesus 
into a series of abstractions, but if it was only an impracticable 
dream it will not do for our day. It is a doubtful gain to 
see a fairer vision if the new be as unattainable as the old. 
Such a vision only brings added despair to a world eager for 
help. 

In reality, the supreme contribution of Jesus to our world 
was his own life, lived under conditions such as we have 
to face, for He not only had to preach about the New Order 
but He lived it When there appeared upon the plains of 
human history One whose faith in God was unwavering and 
unbroken, the Kingdom became a concrete reality. Jesus 
moved about supplementing at every turn weak and defec- 
tive human life. He proved in terms of deeds, which are 
their own best commentary, that God has no joy in sin 
and suffering and disease, in human hunger and want and 
ignorance. He embodied the Kingdom spirit. In Him the 
New Order became a living reality. 

He did more than that. He gathered about Him a dozen 
ordinary men whom no one could accuse of being saints or 
philosophers, and by means of that little group He made 
the Kingdom a social reality. It was a slow process, imper- 

63 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

fectly realized, yet at the end He had so lived Himself into 
their lives that He could commit the entire future of the 
New Order to them, and all that is best and finest in our civil- 
ization we owe to the fact that in those twelve men the 
Kingdom became a social fact. 

Throughout the succeeding ages this inner spiritual King- 
dom has sought social expression. Often the social expres- 
sion has been utterly inadequate ; always it has needed to be 
corrected by the Master who called it into being. And never 
before in all history has the world been in such dire need 
of adequate expression, through a human brotherhood, of the 
Kingdom spirit of the Christ. 

V. A Summary. 

Jesus' idea of the New Order, then, is the reign of a Fa- 
therly God in the hearts of men who thereby become brothers. 
Its fundamental law is the law of service. While primarily 
a matter of the spirit and never to be confused with out- 
ward forms of government or theological speculation, this 
New Order seeks adequate social and political forms of 
expression, in every age. It is of inestimable value, worthy 
of the entire resources of the individual, a thing of slow 
growth but of transforming power. While it challenges the 
highest idealism, it has actually been realized upon our earth 
and is capable of successful approximation by common men. 
It is the Supreme Good of human existence, carrying with 
it in proper relationship all other things of real worth (Mt. 

6:33). 

How we may qualify for citizenship in this New Order will 
be our next study. 

64 



CHAPTER V 
CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

i. Repentance and belief. Mk. 1:15. 

2. Following Jesus. Mk. 1:16-20 cf. Mt. 4:18-22 and 
Luke 5:1-11; Mk. 2:13, 14. 

3. Appreciation. Luke 14:15-24. 

4. Receptivity. Mk. 10:13-16 cf. Mt. 19:13-15 and Luke 

18:15-17. 

5. Warning notes. 

a. The danger of riches. Mk. 10:17-27 cf. Mt. 
19:16-26 and Luke 18:18-27. 

b. Sacrifice of personal considerations. Mk. 9:43- 
47 cf . Mt. 5 :29, 30. 

c. The cost. Luke 14:25-33 cf. Mt. 10:37, 38. 

d. The demands. Luke 9:57-62 cf. Mt. 8:19-22. 

6. Individual cases. 

a. The fishermen and Matthew. Mk. 1:16-20; 2:13, 
14. 

b. The Gerasene demoniac. Mk. 5:18-20 esp. vs. 19 

c. Zaccheus. Luke 19:1-10. 

d. The rich young man. Mt. 19:16-20. 

7. A transformed life. John 3:1-3. 

65 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

I. Positive Demands. 

i. Try to frame the positive requirements of Jesus in the 
terms of life to-day. What is repentance in view of the 
coming of the New Order? Does it refer to something more 
than mere "personal" wrong doing? Does it include one's 
attitude to one's group ? Does it include negligence and a lack 
of responsibility as well as positive social sins? 

2. What does it mean to "believe" in the New Order? 
How would you distinguish "belief" from "hope" in regard 
to the coming of a New Order? Is your attitude one of 
"hope" or "belief" ? 

3. Examine the statement, "Follow me." What did it mean 
for the fishermen and Matthew? Does it mean anything 
so radical as that now? 

4. Study "appreciation" and "receptivity" as Kingdom 
qualities. What is the importance of these qualities in 
ordinary social life? Are they equally applicable to the 
New Social Order and to one's attitude toward truth? 

II. Hindrances. 

1. Read over these hindrances as Jesus sets them forth, 
materialism, selfishness, superficial enthusiasm (failure to 
count the cost), etc. Add to the list present-day hindrances 
to citizenship in the New Order. What are your personal 
hindrances? 

III. The Transformed Life. 

1. Note the variety of circumstances under which the 
men whom Jesus transformed spent their lives. 
2 Can you see an answer to Nicodemus' question (John 

66 



CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

3 14) in the transformation wrought in the lives of Zaccheus 
and others? 

3. What has the leadership of Jesus meant in your life? 
Is it because of failure to meet his demands that it has not 
meant more? 



In the last chapter we sought to define the New Order 
as it appears in Jesus' teaching. Now we are going to 
see it as Jesus presents it to the men of his own day, in 
its claims upon them and its relation to the lives they were 
living. We shall come to closer grips with the New Order 
in this connection, for this was Jesus' way of presenting 
it. He never defined the Kingdom and seems not to have 
been greatly concerned about theories, but He was concerned 
about people. Practically everything He said was the prod- 
uct of the give-and-take of personal conversation or of some 
concrete human situation. A wayside encounter, a quiet 
noontide talk, the action of religious leaders, the needs of 
a crowd, these called forth his most profound words. 

In our day we are challenged to remember that this Jesus, 
whom we have sometimes been tempted to think of as a 
dreamer, did not outline his splendid ideal of a New Order 
in the quiet of a hermit's cell or a scholar's study. In 
fact, He never committed a word of it to writing. It was 
all the product of face-to-face contact with living men and 
women in the midst of the rough and tumble of life. For 
these reasons the New Order gains in reality when we see 
how Jesus put it up to ordinary men. 

Any movement or organization stands revealed by its re- 

67 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

quirements even more than by its promises or ideals. We 
shall be able to put the New Order to this practical test by 
asking what the conditions of entrance are as Jesus formu- 
lated them. The answer will be found under four general 
statements. First, the conditions of entrance into the New 
Order are very simple. Second, they are very exacting. 
Third, they differ with different individuals. Fourth, partici- 
pation in the New Order means a transformed person. 

I. The Simplicity of the Conditions. 

When we remember that Jesus is here beginning the procla- 
mation of a world religion which has lasted through nine- 
teen centuries and has claimed the allegiance of the most 
progressive nations and races of the world, the naked simplic- 
ity of his initial demands upon men is astounding. He 
began by announcing, "The time has fully come, and the 
Kingdom of God is close at hand : repent and believe this 
Good News" (Mk. 1:15, Weymouth). Some time after this 
He was passing along the shore of the Lake of Galilee and 
•saw there two pairs of brothers, fishermen, and He said to 
them, "Come and follow me" (Mk. 1:16), and they left their 
nets and followed him. Another incident, later in his min- 
istry, is characteristic of the demands He made. "They 
were bringing little children to Jesus, that he might touch 
them; but the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw 
it, he was indignant, and said to them, Let the little children 
come to me and forbid them not ; for of such is the Kingdom 
of God. I tell you truly, Whoever shall not receive the 
Kingdom of God as a little child, shall by no means enter 
it" (Mk. 10:13-16). 

Again He told of a man who planned to give a great 

68 



CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

supper and invited many people. But when the time for the 
supper arrived, with ludicrous unanimity they pleaded press- 
ing engagements. Then the master of the house said to his 
servant, "If these people don't want to eat my supper I will 
invite people who do. Go out quickly into the streets and 
lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the crip- 
ples, the blind and the lame." And the master of the house 
added, "I tell you not one of those men who were invited 
shall taste of my supper" (Luke 14:15-24). 

Could anything be easier or simpler? He demanded the 
same genuine repentance which had been John's keynote. 
He insisted that people have a thoroughly positive attitude 
toward the good news that the New Order was at hand. They 
must believe it and they must be willing to show the genu- 
ineness of their belief by readjusting their lives to the extent 
of literally following Him if He demanded it. They must 
have the teachableness of a child and they must be hungry 
for the New Order. Repent, Believe in the Good News, Fol- 
low Me, Be Teachable, Be Hungry for the New Order. 
These are the characteristic demands which Jesus made in 
the early days in Galilee. 

Jesus asked for a certain attitude rather than any attain- 
ment. The men whom He called into fellowship with Him- 
self were not versed in theology. They had no well-defined 
theory about Jesus. They were not asked to confess any 
creed. He did not demand perfection of character or an 
adequate intellectual grasp of the Kingdom. As a matter 
of fact, long after this these men were both unstable in 
character and clouded in understanding. They were not 
saints or theologians, but they were men of moral earnest- 
ness, who were ready to commit their lives to the New Order, 

69 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

and they were so hungry and thirsty for the righteousness 
that should characterize it, that in true teachableness and 
humility they left all and followed Jesus. 

Are these the initial conditions of entrance into the New 
Order to-day? If Jesus were to walk among men to-day 
would He attach unto Himself the men and the women who 
are hungry and thirsty for justice and mercy in our world, 
who are willing to commit themselves body and soul to the 
better day? Just what tests would He apply now? 

II. The Exacting Demands of the New Order. 

The exacting nature of Jesus' demands are even more 
astounding than their simplicity. Each one of the simple 
conditions for entrance into the New Order is rigorously 
thorough-going. Jesus meant by Repent just that moral 
renovation of the entire life which John the Baptist had 
called for. He meant by Believe in the Good News no 
saccharine optimism that "things will come out right in 
the end," but a personal commitment to the New Order. 
Belief such as He called for was not an uncertain step in 
the dark but the launching of the entire personality in the 
service of the Kingdom. And when He said, Follow me, 
He made the most severe demand of all. 

We have thought often of the beauty of that scene by 
Galilee (Mk. 1:16-20). The fishermen are at their nets; the 
strolling Teacher passes by; He calls them into pleasant 
fellowship with Him, and they leave their boats and the 
blue waters of Galilee. But the dominant note of the pic- 
ture is power. Jesus is taking control of the lives of these 
men. He is asking no less than that they abandon their 
life tasks and at his bidding undertake an entirely new 

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CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

adventure. This is something radical. And then his re- 
quirement that citizens of the New Order have the child- 
like spirit, that seems harmless enough ! ''The Kingdom of 
God belongs to those who are childlike" (Mk. 10:14). But 
we need to remember that in this same connection He said : 
"In solemn truth I tell you that no one who does not receive 
the Kingdom of God like a little child will by any possibil- 
ity enter it" (Mk. 10:15). And even the genuinely humor- 
ous and delightful story of the man who gave the great 
supper (Luke 14:15-24) concludes with a grave warning: 
"For I tell you, not one of those men who were invited shall 
taste of my supper." 

We do not have to read far in the gospels to discover 
how serious the matter of citizenship in the New Order really 
is. Jesus' demands were exactly as uncompromising as the 
demands which a nation makes of her citizens in time of 
war. He said : "If any one is coming to me who does not 
hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and 
sisters, yes and his own life also, he cannot be a disciple 
of mine'' (Luke 14:26, 27). We used to find it necessary 
to explain that Jesus' words were hyperbolic, and that He 
was only demanding that absolute loyalty which will be ready 
to break all home ties, but millions have learned by experi- 
ence just what Jesus meant by the partings that seem little 
less cruel than hate. 

In similar passages (Luke 9:57-62) Jesus emphasized abso- 
lute loyalty as a requirement of the New Order. His words, 
"No man who looks back after having put his hand to the 
plow is fit for the Kingdom of God," are still the classic 
expression of unswerving loyalty to a cause. He needed 
heroic men who were ready to sacrifice all and venture all. 

7 l 



HE WAY OF CHRIST 

Yet He asked his disciples to sit down first and with abso- 
lute sincerity to count the cost (Luke 14:28-33). 

By means of startling figures of speech, Jesus taught that 
all personal considerations, however dear or indispensable 
they seem, must be sacrificed for the New Order. ''If your 
hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it would be better 
for you to enter into life maimed," etc. (Mk. 9:43-47, Wey- 
mouth). And to the amazement of his disciples He re- 
peatedly declared that wealth was often a barrier to citi- 
zenship in the New Order, and in particular cases where it 
was evidently such a barrier He did not hesitate to advise 
that it be disposed of (Mk. 10:17-27). 

III. Readjustments in the Lives of Individuals. 

We have reviewed the simple yet exacting conditions of 
entrance into the New Order. In general Jesus called for a 
whole-hearted loyalty to the Kingdom. But He did not set 
forth any one way in which that loyalty must find expres- 
sion, and, as a matter of fact, we find a variety of individual 
readjustments caused by allegiance to the New Order. 

For twelve men, citizenship in the New Order meant leav- 
ing their fishing boats (Mk. 1:16-20) and their business 
offices (Mk. 2:13, 14) to follow Jesus. Mark's gospel, with 
characteristic conciseness, explains the purpose of this sum- 
mons : "He appointed twelve that they might be with him 
and that he might send them forth" (Mk. 3:14). Through- 
out the Christian centuries "Following Christ" has meant just 
such a radical change in the entire circumstances of groups 
of men, and with the same end in view, "that they might be 
with him and that he might send them forth." The mani- 
fold ministries of the modern church and the richly varied 

72 



CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

opportunities of the missionary field repeat Christ's words, 
"Come and follow me," and for many, citizenship can mean 
no less than dropping everything to respond. 

But although the pages of our records are largely filled 
with the doings of Jesus and these twelve whom He called 
into fellowship, there are not wanting priceless accounts of 
what happened in the lives of certain common men who were 
not asked to leave all and follow Him. 

One such individual wanted to give up everything else and 
follow Jesus, but Jesus very definitely told him that citizen- 
ship in his case meant something more prosaic, if just as 
serviceable. Read the dramatic story of the insane man of 
the Gerasene country (Mk. 5:1-20 and parallels). This wild 
man of the hills had terrorized the whole country-side, but 
the quiet majesty of the Master was more than a match for 
his untamed spirit and he found himself restored to that 
world from which he had been cut off. Imagine his relief 
and joy! It does him no little credit that as the Master 
is about to leave he rushes up to the boat and with heart 
swelling with gratitude cries out, "Take me with you, I'll 
serve you, I'll go anywhere with you. Only take me with 
you." But Jesus turns to him with the answer, "No. Go 
home to your friends and tell them what the Lord has 
done for you and how he has had mercy on you." 

It was not an easy commission. One can imagine that 
in the home community the man restored to sanity would 
meet some suspicion. Neighbor would remark to neighbor, 
"I understand that So-and-so is home again, and they say 
he is clothed and in his right mind. But as for me" (with 
a shrug of the shoulder) "I think he will bear watching. 
You never can tell about people that have had that disease," 

73 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Far more romantic would have been the companionship 
with Jesus in strange regions. But citizenship for him 
meant taking his religion home with him and living it out 
under familiar and prosaic circumstances. And he did it, with 
what results the gospel story records. His transformed 
life was a telling sermon to the entire district (Mk. 5:20). 

Like Kipling's Mulholland we are prone to want to preach 
our religion "handsome and out of the wet," but "The word 
of the Lord were lain upon me, and I done what I was 
set." 

Luke has preserved for us the story of a man for whom 
entrance into the Kingdom meant a readjustment of his 
business practices (Luke 19:1-10). No character in the New 
Testament has more of human interest than this same Zac- 
cheus. Here as ever Luke is the artist, and with a few 
deft strokes of the pen he lets us see and understand his 
character. "He was a chief publican and he was rich." 
This man had money but no friends. To all Jericho this 
tax gatherer was a renegade Jew who had sold his country 
for pieces of silver. He had his fine house but no friends. 
No wonder the publicans became a lot of cynical, sour, 
hard-hearted, tight-fisted men ! But this Zaccheus had higher 
aspirations than his kind. He had heard of a man gifted 
beyond belief with a genius for friendship, and when the 
report came that Jesus was drawing near to Jericho, Zac- 
cheus was in the crowd. It is a humorous yet pathetic pic- 
ture Luke gives us of the little man who overcame the 
handicap of his stature by climbling the mulberry tree. How 
the crowd must have appreciated the joke of this rich official 
"up a tree!" 

And then Jesus came. He took in the situation at a glance. 

74 



CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

About Him a crowd of the curious, the sensation-loving, 
and there in the tree the little man hungry for friendship. 
If there had been a touch of the demagogue about Jesus, 
what a roar of laughter and applause He could have drawn 
from the crowd by some witty sally about the unpopular 
Zaccheus ! But instead, with fine courage, He looked up 
at him and said, "Zaccheus, come down quickly, for I must 
stay at your house to-day." With eager and joyous haste 
the publican scrambles down and leads Jesus away to his 
home to be his guest ! But as they move through the streets 
of the city he hears the comments of the accompanying 
throng. "Aha," they are saying, "so He has gone in to be 
the guest of a notorious sinner ! Can you see the flush rise 
on Zaccheus' cheek? And now they come to his home and 
Jesus is about to enter when, at the very threshold, Zaccheus 
pauses, and half facing the Lord and half facing the crowd 
he declares, "Here and now, Master, I give half my prop- 
erty to the poor, and if I have unjustly exacted money 
from any man, I pledge myself to repay to him four times 
the amount." Turning to him ; Jesus replied, "To-day salva- 
tion has come to this house" (Weymouth). These were the 
conditions of entrance into the New Order which Zaccheus 
and many of his kind have to face. 

One more candidate for citizenship in the New Order — 
and this is the finest type of all (Mk 10:17-22). There 
came running to Jesus a young man. He did not bear the 
marks of a misspent life or of a crooked and wasted char- 
acter. He came rather all unexhausted in his potentialities 
and powers. And Jesus, Mark tells us, looking upon him, 
loved him, for his youth, for his moral rectitude, for his 
unsullied physique, for the clean-cut, clear-eyed strength 

75 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

and purity of his character. And this youth said, "Re- 
spected Teacher, what is your rule for life? I have learned 
and observed the program of my religion but I am not satis- 
fied." And Jesus replied, "You don't need another rule or 
another law. You have had ethical programs enough. Don't 
think of me just as a Good Teacher but cut adrift from 
your wealth and follow me. Your need is for God. Come 
with me and learn of Him." And the youth turned away, 
for he had great wealth. 

He thought his need- was for another precept, a shorter, 
more satisfying intellectual statement. But Jesus knew that 
his need was for inner power. If he followed Jesus he 
must have been led where all the rest were led, into the 
consciousness of God's presence in his life. For Jesus led 
men into the presence of God so that they could call Him 
Father and understand his will and receive strength to do 
it long before they were intellectually able to explain all 
their experiences. 

Are there those whose need now is a like simplicity of 
guidance even in the face of unsolved intellectual and ethical 
tangles? Does citizenship to-day mean cutting adrift from 
entangling hindrances of every sort? 

IV. A Transformed Person. 

Now there was one of the Pharisees whose name was 
Nicodemus, a ruler among the Jews. He came to Jesus by 
night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come 
from God; for no one can do these miracles which you are 
doing, unless God is with him. 

In most solemn truth I tell you, answered Jesus, that 
unless a man is born anew he cannot see the Kingdom of 

76 



CONDITIONS OF ENTRANCE 

God. . . . How is all this possible? asked Nicodemus (John 
S'-iS, Weymouth). 

These words have seemed to every generation of Chris- 
tians through all the centuries to be the most adequate and 
fitting description of entrance into the Kingdom of God. 
The wonder, the mystery, the joy, the newness of physical 
birth symbolize the renewal of life which citizenship in the 
New Order means. How is all this possible? Nicodemus 
asked, and Jesus replied that it could not be explained like 
a problem in mathematics; it is above earthly things (John 
3:12). And yet, think of these men we have been study- 
ing, so different one from another, the rich young ruler, the 
successful business man, the poor weak-minded Gerasene, 
some fishermen and tradesmen, as widely different as men 
are to-day. Was it anything less than a new birth for Zach- 
cheus, when he shook off the crooked practices of a business 
lifetime and courageously faced his sneering neighbors? He 
had become a new man. And the restored demoniac, was he 
not proving the birth of a new life within when he set his 
face back to the prosaic life of the home community? As for 
Zaccheus, it had all come about through his hunger for a 
friend and his sincere welcoming of Jesus not only to his 
home but into the inner household of his heart. As for the 
fishermen, the miracle happened because they followed Jesus. 
As for Paul, he, too, saw Jesus and confessed Him as the 
leader of the New Order, and the miracle was wrought in 
his life. It is Paul who has given this new birth its classic 
expression : "It is no Longer I that live, but Christ that liveth 
in me." 

And so through all the centuries as men have followed 

77 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Jesus the new life has come into being. Our study of the 
varied experiences of these varied men will teach us to 
look for the new life in no stereotyped way, at no set 
times or seasons, but we will confidently expect it wherever 
men follow Jesus. 

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray, 
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us to-day. 



78 



CHAPTER VI 

THE IDEAL CITIZEN 
SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

i. The ideal citizen. Mt. 5:1-12. 

2. His two-fold responsibilities. Mt. 5:13-16. 

3. The danger of misdirecting his energies. Mt. 5 :38-48. 

I. The Ideal Citizen. 

1. Paraphrase the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:1-12), substituting for 
the biblical phrases modern terms which express what you 
think Jesus meant. 

2. Try to form a picture of a person embodying all the 
characteristics of the ideal citizen. Would such a person be 
a positive or a negative character? Which characteristics 
seem negative? Which are unquestionably positive? If 
certain characteristics seem negative try thinking of them 
with reference to the New Order. For example, would 
mourning at the triumph of evil be possible for a strong 
character? 

3. Think again about the ideal citizen in the light of the 
above questions. If such a person were to appear in your 
community or group what would be the result? What per- 
son in the circle of your acquaintances is nearest to this 
ideal? Is that person a positive or a negative individual? 

79 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

II. The Twofold Responsibilities of the Ideal Citizen. 

Mt. 5:13-16. 

1. Study these two figures of speech. What kind of a 
force is the citizen of the New Order to be? What do you 
mean when you say of a person, "He's the salt of the earth?" 

2. In what sense do these words of Jesus constitute a 
challenge? In what sense are they a warning? Would 
these words seem to imply that if one is actually a citizen of 
Jesus' New Order he must "save" and "shine"? 

III. Misdirected Energies. Mt. 5:38-48. 

1. What is the main idea in these perplexing illustrations? 
Who is it that is in danger of being injured in each case? 

2. As a matter of practical experience how much satisfac- 
tion have you had from any attempts to avenge insults and 
injuries? How many friends have you made in that way? 

3. Is Jesus' teaching here about misdirected and selfishly 
directed energies capable of a wider application than to indi- 
viduals? Is it applicable to nations? 

Try to formulate again your picture of the ideal citizen 
of the New Order. 



Power attracts every normal person. 

Who has not felt a sense of satisfaction as inch by inch, 
foot by foot, the driving, steady, undaunted force within the 
automobile eats up a long steep hill? It is the satisfaction of 
power, a sense of union and fellow feeling with the engine, 
an exaltation as from a personal triumph. Or remember the 

80 



THE IDEAL CITIZEN 

great power house with its low, dull hum of ponderous ma- 
chines, perfectly adjusted, nicely oiled, the caldron where is 
brewed so much of the magic of modern life. 

We see more than revolving wheels and clever mechanism. 
We see a whole network of transportation facilities and tens 
of thousands of gleaming lights, and we pay our tribute to 
the genius of the inventor and the accuracy and patience and 
skill of the mechanic. But it is the great something which 
genius and skill and accuracy and patience, cooperating, have 
discovered and harnessed that enthralls us. It is the power 
that fascinates. 

Power attracts every normal person whether manifested in 
a great waterfall, a mighty locomotive or a dynamic human 
personality. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar had his weaknesses. 
He was deaf in one ear, a poor judge of character, and eaten 
up with ambition. But in spite of all the defects which his- 
tory can discover or fiction invent, this man made his impress 
on the world's life, and rulers have delighted in the titles 
Czar and Kaiser because of the power of one Caesar. 

While strength and ambition are ours, we all share this 
thirst for power. Not that we would wield the influence of 
a Caesar, but that we would have an abundant life, full and 
rich. We are not content to think of ourselves as mere pawns 
in the cosmic game or cogs in a great machine. Any philoso- 
phy or religion which would win our allegiance must promise 
an enlarging, more abundant, more powerful life. 

Surely this is the characteristic demand which our age 
makes of Christianity. It must offer this richer, more satis- 
fying, and particularly this more potent life. Our query iti 
this chapter will be, What kind of person is the ideal citizen 

81 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

of Jesus' New Order? We must ask frankly if he is actually 
a satisfying ideal for us to-day. 

I. Our Ideal Citizen. 

"As one reads the Gospels there meet him two great words 
which announce the nature of the teaching. . . . The first is 
the word Power, the second is the word Life."* "The Chris- 
tian," says the author of "Ecce Homo," "has passed from 
passive to active humanity." 

Quotations such as the above suit our modern thought 
about the Christian. We like to think that there is nothing 
negative about him. He is masculine and potent, a maximum 
personality, bubbling over with energy and enthusiasm. He 
incorporates all the most aggressive qualities of our modern 
business heroes. Just as the engineer "belts on to cosmic 
forces, harnesses his machinery to the lightnings and runs 
the earth at the impulse of the sky and the spaces," so the 
Christian has "belted on" to the invisible spiritual forces of 
our universe until, as we put it, he "does things." 

Our ideal is the active, positive Christian, a force in the 
world. The business of the Christian, as Dr. Parkhurst 
once put it, is "to prove to the world that people who sniff 
at a religion that runs over with God and celestial energy 
are as slow and as far in the rear of their opportunities as 
would be the man who should transport freight from New 
York to Chicago on a donkey cart or carry American tourists 
to Europe in a row boat." Our ideal citizen is up-to-date. 

Moreover, he is robustly athletic. No pale-faced ascetic 
will satisfy us. He must have nerves, prompt and accurate 

* Peabody : The Christian Life in the Modern World, p. 32. 

82 



THE IDEAL CITIZEN 

as telegraph instruments, a heart action which is reliable and 
efficient, lungs which are sound, muscles ready to tackle hard 
work and laugh at it. He will rejoice in the "game" of 
life. We have revised our picture of the young man Jesus 
Christ because only a magnificent physique seems the proper 
bodying forth of that magnificent, spirit. 

Our ideal Christian, then, has the aggressiveness of a suc- 
cessful business man, the efficiency of an engineer, the mental 
alertness of the trained thinker, the physique of an athlete, 
the courage, discipline and endurance of a soldier. He is a 
composite of our present-day heroes. There is something 
behind and beneath all these characteristics, of course, which 
is the reason why we call him a Christian. But do we not 
hope that Jesus' ideal citizen will turn out to be just such a 
positive, successful, satisfying person as we have been think- 
ing about? 

II. Jesus' Ideal Citizen. 

Happy the poor in spirit! 
For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Happy the meek! 
For they shall inherit the earth. 
Happy they who mourn ! 
For they shall be comforted. 

Happy they who hunger and thirst for righteousness ! 
For they shall be satisfied. 
Happy the merciful ! 
For they shall obtain mercy. 
Happy the pure in heart ! 
For they shall see God. 
Happy the peacemakers ! 
For they shall be called sons of God. 

S3 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Happy they who have been persecuted on account of 
righteousness ! 

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Happy are you when men shall denounce you and persecute 
you, 

Speaking falsely on account of me, and denounce and 
persecute and say all manner of evil against you ! 

Rejoice and exult! For great is your reward in heaven. 

For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 
(Mt. 5:3-12, translation from Kent: Life and Teachings of 
Jesus, p. 204.) 

We read these words with a sense of bewilderment. Did 
Jesus throw open the doors of the New Order to the poor 
in spirit, the meek, the mournful, the merciful? Are the 
peacemaker and the persecuted his ideal? Involuntarily we 
say these are all negative qualities. They describe a good 
saint but not a good citizen. We repeat these famous Beati- 
tudes with mental reservations because somehow they fail to 
hit off the needs of our life. Can we set an ideal like that 
before the young manhood and womanhood of our world? 
It seems far from a positive picture of the Christian life. 
This might do for a little group of saints, who needed the 
assurance of future rewards as they faced persecution; our 
own need is for a positive program for this world. 

But before we turn from the Beatitudes as a hopelessly 
negative portrayal of an ideal person, we need to think more 
carefully about them. In the first place we need to remember 
that the author of these words was no negative personality. 
He set in motion forces which have come sweeping down 
through the centuries. Indeed, a strong case can be made 
out for the proposition that Jesus Christ deliberately chose 



THE IDEAL CITIZEN 

such forceful ways for presenting his claims and the claims 
of the Kingdom that the world could not ignore or forget 
them. 

Moreover, as a great scholar has finely put it, in these 
Beatitudes, "it is not so much a question of recompense as of 
consequence" (Plummer). When Jesus said, Happy the 
meek, for they shall inherit the earth, He was not assigning 
an arbitrary future reward, but announcing a great spiritual 
law, namely, that meekness actually results in such an inherit- 
ance. At any rate, happiness is declared to be the present pos- 
session of the person who bears these characteristics. 

And finally, we need to remember that positiveness is not 
the same thing as bluster. The most powerful forces in our 
world move quietly. Let us think, then, about this ideal 
citizen as Jesus pictures him, to see if he really is a negative 
person. 

III. A Positive or a Negative Person? 

What if the "poor in spirit" are not the physically and 
morally anemic, but those men and women who feel as the 
deepest need of their lives the presence and power of God's 
reinforcing spirit, who face their tasks with a sense of utter 
dependence upon Him, who would fain enrich their own 
spiritual poverty from the exhaustless treasuries of God? 
Who were the people in the Palestine of Jesus' day whom 
He could not touch or influence? Not the ignorant or the 
morally perverted but the self-sufficient, who, encased in the 
armor of their spiritual satisfaction, were impervious alike to 
the love and the power of the Master. Is that what Jesus 
meant in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican? Was 
the publican "poor in spirit"? (Luke 18:9-14.) 

85 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

What if "the meek" are not the mollycoddles, but those 
strong men and women who know that humility is the level 
where we must all stand if we would learn and the garment 
we must all wear if we would work. Have we false concep- 
tions of meekness because of the people who have thought it 
could be gained by direct assault? who have said, Go to now, 
I will be humble? who have arrived at a spurious humility 
strangely like pride? Humility is attained by looking up and 
out, not in, — up at God's standards and out upon humanity's 
needs. 

When men really pray, humility is there. It was only the 
Master who could say, "I am meek and lowly." Paul said, 
"I am the least of the apostles," but he hastened to add, "I 
labored more abundantly than they all." That is the test of 
genuine humility. We must beware of the meekness which 
says, "I can be humble and lowly but I can't do anything," 
for meekness is not an end but an atmosphere. Let no one 
say, "I am the least" unless he is willing to add, "Therefore 
I will work twice as hard," for the necessity which humility 
imposes is "labors more abundant." Humility and labors 
more abundant form a tremendous, an almost irresistible 
combination. 

What if they who "mourn" are not the sad-faced, gloomy 
pessimists of life, upset by trivial misfortunes and slight per- 
sonal inconveniences, but rather those whose deepest desires 
are to see the New Order realized here and now and who are 
cut to the quick by every triumph of evil. Is it right to say 
that the only sorrow and grief which is in harmony with 
God's will is the heartache at the delay in the coming of his 
Kingdom in which all suffering and sorrow will vanish? 

86 



THE IDEAL CITIZEN 

Are not "mourners" of this sort the only people who can be 
righteously and permanently happy? 

What if this ideal citizen is filled with a divine discontent 
at his own spiritual attainment (Mt. 5:4), is mastered by an 
intense longing for God's forgiveness and approval (v. 6), 
becomes the harmony-maker or whole-maker of his com- 
munity (v. 9) and persists in such a program in spite of all 
discouragements (v. 10, 11)? 

Imagine what would happen in your community if there 
should appear such an individual, a true citizen of the New 
Order, utterly dependent upon God for strength, hungering 
and thirsting for righteousness in the common life, cut to the 
quick by every blasting influence which threatens, a cham- 
pion of wholesomeness in social relationships (v. 9), self- 
forgetful in service, pure of heart, compassionate, and filled 
with that deep and permanent joy which is the keynote of the 
New Order. Would you think of him as a negative person- 
ality or the most powerful and positive influence in your 
group ? 

IV. The Nature of the Force Which the Citizen Exerts. 

As though He were speaking to our modern perplexity Jesus 
goes on to describe the nature of the power which the ideal 
citizen is to exert. 

"You are the salt of the earth ; but if salt has become taste- 
less, in what way can it regain its saltness? It is no longer 
good for anything but to be thrown away and trodden on by 
the passers by. You are the light of the world ; a town 
cannot be hid if built on a hill-top. Nor is a lamp lighted to 
be put under a bushel, but on a lamp-stand ; and then it gives 
light to all in the house. Just so let your light shine before 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

all men, in order that they may see your holy lives and give 
glory to your Father who is in Heaven." (Mt. 5:13-16, 
Weymouth.) 

There can be no possible mistake here. The citizen of the 
Kingdom is to be a positive force. Can you think in all the 
world of forces, of any two which are more humble, less 
boisterous, farther removed from bluster, than salt and sun- 
shine? And can you think of any two which are more pow- 
erful, more wholesome? Pliny said, "There is nothing more 
useful than salt and sunshine." The citizen of the New 
Order is to be both. 

How personal Jesus made this statement ! He plainly said, 
You are the light and the salt. We have been saying, 
Christianity is the light and the salt, as though there were 
abroad in the world a vague, undefined force, disassociated 
from people so commonplace as Smith and Brown and Jones. 
We thanked God for our Christian civilization and Christian 
influences. And then a great flood of war engulfed the 
world and we looked in vain for Christian civilization and 
influence to assert its impersonal power and stop the war. 
But is there any such thing as Christianity apart from per- 
sons? And has not this war brought to each of us a sense 
of shame and sorrow as we confess that the light of Christ 
has been rather shining upon us than burning in us? It has 
been preserving us, and not in us as a saving power for 
society.* 

The positive character of the citizen and the nature of the 
force he is to exert are brought to further clearness in those 

* Hogg : Christ's Message of the Kingdom, p. 4. 



THE IDEAL CITIZEN 

perplexing illustrations about the way to deal with personal 
insults. Jesus seems to give no place for that hot pride and 
revengeful spirit which flares up unbidden at the slap on the 
cheek (Mt. 5:39) or the more studied wrong-doing (v. 40) 
or the restriction of personal liberty (v. 41). Can Jesus 
have meant us to take a negative attitude toward the wicked- 
ness of bad men? Impossible! we say. His whole life is the 
answer to that, for He did more to vanquish evil than any one 
who ever lived. 

This novel method of dealing with personal insults must 
be, in Jesus' thought, the strongest way of righting evil. 
Perhaps He was trying to direct the positive efforts of the 
citizen into constructive channels. How much of our energy 
is spent in worrying about whether we have been wronged or 
insulted or slighted or ill-treated? Is this a wise expenditure 
of our personal abilities or would it be more effective to 
expend the same thought and effort in creating and liberating 
the power of love and good will in such practical ways as to 
change the attitude of our enemies toward us? Once again 
we must beware of confusing bluster with power. 

V. Is the Ideal Practicable? 

Even though Jesus' ideal citizen of the New Order is seen 
to be a strong and positive personality, do we have anything 
more than a picture? Is this ideal at all possible of realiza- 
tion? 

Turn to the Acts of the Apostles and read there how the 
powerful life began to show itself in the tradesmen and 
fishermen who had been with Jesus. After the crucifixion 
and the resurrection they come to the risen Lord with a ques- 
tion on their lips : "Master, is this the time at which you are 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

about to restore the kingdom for Israel?" (Acts i : 6, Wey- 
mouth.) They did not understand even then that Jesus was 
not concerned with an outward political kingdom. But with 
the same patience which had characterized his dealings with 
them through the weeks and months just past, the Master 
made answer, "It is not for you to know about these things, 
but if it is power you want, you shall receive power" (Acts 
17). 

That promise of power came true. The drama of the New 
Testament is the proof. The powerful life was actually lived 
by these common men. Not that mediocre intellects became 
brilliant or that obscure men were advanced to places of 
worldly power, but they knew in their own lives the mastery 
over evil. They did not become suddenly perfect, nor were 
they lifted miraculously out of the realm where men battle 
with temptation, but the grip of lust was loosed and the 
power of the clean life was theirs. The fear of death was 
no longer a specter and the power of the endless life was 
theirs, The impulse to service sent them forth to tell the 
story of Jesus to the ends of the earth, and the power of the 
unselfish life was theirs. 

These simple men found themselves living with God as a 
Father of infinite love and tenderness and with their fellow- 
men as brothers. They were confident that the eternal Father 
was in control of human history and that He could be trusted 
with their lives. Unique, manifold power was theirs, because 
they had left their nets and their desks and their places of 
business to heed the call, "Follow me," 



90 



CHAPTER VII 

THE INNER ATTITUDE 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

The importance of the inner attitude : 

1. In relation to people. Mt. 5:21-26; 27-32; 7:1-5; 

18:21-35. 

2. In relation to "things." Mt. 6:19-34. 

3. In relation to God. Mt. 6:1. Mt. 6:2, 3 cf. Mk. 

14:3-9; 12:41-44. Mt. 6:5-15 cf. Luke 18:9-14. 
Mt. 6:16-18. 

4. The inner attitude of the ideal citizen. Mt. 6 33. 

Preliminary Questions. 

These two chapters of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5 
and 6) are best studied as revealing the inner attitudes of 
the citizen of the New Order. Jesus is setting forth the 
way in which he will "feel" inside as he meets various people 
and relates himself to "things" and to God. Read all the 
references listed above with this in mind. 

I. The Citizen's Attitude Toward Other People. 

1. What do you think Jesus means to say in Mt. 5:21-26? 
Is He referring to outward acts or inner attitudes ? 

2. Is it possible to do justice to a person in a single phrase 
or nickname? What are the dangers of branding a person 

91 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

by a single cutting phrase? Is contempt a besetting sin of 
youth? Do you personally have to fight it? 

3. What do you think of the practice of calling foreigners 
by contemptuous nicknames such as Chinks, Dagoes, Wops? 
May this have international consequences? 

4. Read Jesus' searching words about reverence for the 
person of another. Mt. 5 :27ft. 

5. List the practical suggestions Jesus gives in regard to 
strained relations between individuals. Mt. 7:1-5, 18:21-35. 
Are any of these suggestions applicable to international rela- 
tionships ? 

II. The Citizen's Attitude Toward Things. 

1. Read Mt. 6:19-34 and then attempt a paraphrase in 
your own words. 

2. What is Jesus' definition of simplicity in this passage? 
Is He speaking here about inner attitudes or an outer pro- 
gram? What does it mean not to be anxious about clothes 
and food? What place do you think clothes and food have 
in life? Just why do you value them? 

III. The Citizen's Attitude Toward God. 

1. Read Mt. 6:1-18 and translate it into the corresponding 
acts of worship which make up your religious observances. 

2. Do the same temptations which Jesus describes assail 
you? 

3. What is worship for? Does it mean to you real contact 
with God? If not, is the trouble with the form of worship or 
with your inner attitude? 

4. Do you think there will be a new demand for reality in 

92 



THE INNER ATTITUDE 

acts of religion after the war? Is there such a demand now? 
Are you awake to this need? 

IV. The Inner Attitude of the Ideal Citizen. 

Do you think Mt. 6:33 is an adequate statement of the 
citizen's inner attitude? Put it in your own words. Does 
it mean something positive and powerful to you? 



It is a common delusion to suppose that we become some- 
thing by copying its characteristic manifestations. In the 
old Greek comedy, "The Frogs/' by Aristophanes, this delu- 
sion is amusingly illustrated. The principal character is a 
certain Dionysus, a luxury-loving, effeminate Greek. The 
play gets its plot from a dispute as to the respective merits 
of the two poets iEschylus and Euripides, both deceased. 
To settle the dispute Dionysus essays a visit to the lower 
regions in order to test the merits of the two poets by weigh- 
ing their verses in a scale. The trip involves certain dangers, 
but Dionysus bethinks himself of a scheme. He will dis- 
guise himself as the mighty Heracles, so over his saffron 
gown he throws a lion's skin, and, seizing a huge club, he 
fares forth. But although he has the outer trappings of the 
valiant Heracles it is the trembling soul of the effeminate 
Dionysus beneath the lion's skin which is revealed through- 
out the journey. 

One does not become something simply by copying its char- 
acteristic manifestations, any more than Dionysus became 
Heracles by attempting to hide his saffron gown and dainty 

93, 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

slippers with a lion's skin and a mighty club. It is the inner 
attitude that counts^ 

One does not become an orator by imitating the powerful 
voice of some favorite speaker, or a football player by don- 
ning the latest thing in moleskins, or a cultured man by 
lining his shelves with well-bound volumes or even by expos- 
ing himself to lectures. He must have the "burning in his 
bones" if he would speak so that men will listen; he must 
play, as Theodore Roosevelt once said, "as though he carried 
an extra neck in his pocket," if he would win honors in any 
game; he must "have that thirst for knowledge which will 
compel the earth and the heavens, the past and the present 
to yield their lore, if he would become truly cultured. It is 
the inner attitude that counts. 

Jesus put the emphasis here in the Sermon on the Mount. 
The Sermon on the Mount is not so much a program of 
conduct as it is an examination of the motives and the spirit 
which lie behind the things which the citizen of the New 
Order undertakes to do. Jesus is not outlining a new law 
which He proposes to substitute for the Jewish law or for 
any other system of conduct, but He is tracing right and 
wrong to their beginnings in "the secret laboratory of the 
spirit." These familiar words are like coins, long in circu- 
lation ; they have been worn smooth by much handling. If 
we can restore the mint marks their priceless worth will 
again appear. 

In the fifth and sixth chapters of Matthew Jesus sets forth 
the inner attitude of the Citizen of the New Order toward 
other people, toward things and toward God, 



94 



THE INNER ATTITUDE 

I. The Citizen's Attitude Toward Other People. 

A boy in a famous preparatory school, when asked on his 
first day to write out why he had come, wrote, "I came to 
learn how to get along with other people." In less than 
a dozen words he formulated the biggest problem in our 
world. To-day in blood and tears men are seeking its solu- 
tion. Had Jesus anything to say concerning this problem? 

You have heard that it was said by the men of old, Thou 
shalt not kill, and whoever kills shall be liable to the local 
court. But I tell you, 

Every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to 
the local court ; 

And whoever says to his brother, Ignoramus, shall be 
liable to the Sanhedrin. 

And whoever says to his brother, Fool, shall be liable to 
the Gehenna of Fire. (Mt. 5:21-22, Kent.) 

What does Jesus mean by these strange words? Does He 
really mean to say that if one calls another stupid or fool he 
will be liable to the supreme court of the land or to God's own 
judgment throne. Or is He talking about the inner attitude 
of easy contempt and scorn with which we view our fellows? 
This attitude seemed to Him a grave peril. Unless we dig 
out the roots of contempt and scorn from our lives they 
poison our whole thought about other people. How easy it 
is to get into the habit of summing up the characteristics of 
a person or a race in one facile, unjust, stinging phrase. 
Will the citizen of the new World Order talk about "Dagoes" 
or "Wops" or "Chinks" ? or will he purge himself of all such 
personal or racial superciliousness? We deplore the horrors 

95 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

of a world war, but too often the roots of war are sprouting 
in our own hearts. 

Jesus made it perfectly plain that religious observances will 
not make up for this inner attitude of hate or scorn (Mt. 
5:23-26). 

He taught that respect for the person of another should 
be so genuine and fine as to master even the wayward imagi- 
nations (Mt. 5:27-30). He Himself won degraded men and 
women to new lives by persistently seeing divine possibilities 
within them. 

Jesus laid great emphasis upon the inner attitude of the 
citizen toward any one who has wronged him. He suggested 
that the first thing to do is to go to the individual in person 
and try to make things right. "Now if thy brother sin, go 
show him his fault between thee and him alone" (Mt. 18:15). 
He knew how resentment feeds on suspicion and waxes fat on 
secret broodings. Then He counseled an attitude of for- 
giveness which loses all track of the number of offenses 
(Mt. 18:21). Can any one really forgive an offender if he is 
saying, "This makes the third time or the sixth time I've for- 
given him; one more offense and I'll have revenge"? 

In order that this obligation to forgive indefinitely might be 
rightly comprehended, Jesus told the story of the servant 
who was forgiven a debt of twenty million dollars and then 
refused to forgive his fellow servant a debt of twenty dollars 
(Mt. 18:23-25). Or again, Jesus says it is like a man who 
has a beam in his own eye and wants to take a splinter out 
of his brother's eye (Mt. 7:3-5). We have great need to be 
charitable and forgiving if that is to be the basis of our rela- 
tionship to God (Mt. 6:12, 14, 15). 

We are then to beware of an inner attitude of contempt 

96 






THE INNER ATTITUDE 

and scorn, we are to reverence and respect the person of 
another, and to be quick to forgive a real or a fancied wrong. 
Jesus had more to say about our relations to other people. 
His great positive teaching of the inner attitude of love 
stands at the center of all his words and deserves a special 
chapter for its treatment. 

II. The Citizen's Attitude Toward "Things." 

Jesus dealt very specifically with the citizen's attitude 
toward concrete ''things," such as money, food and clothing 
(Alt. 6:19-34). His words seem very simple and straightfor- 
ward, yet the Christian Church has always found it difficult 
to understand and apply them. 

Christians have felt that Jesus meant his followers to have 
an "unworldly attitude toward things." But the word "un- 
worldly" needs careful definition. What is worldliness? We 
have been inclined to say it is putting too high a value upon 
the things of this world, and we have been warned against 
this temptation. But that is exactly wrong, according to 
these great words of Jesus. Worldliness is putting too low 
a value upon things. It is assigning them only a temporal 
value. The citizen of the New Order places an infinitely 
higher value upon money and food and clothes and things in 
general than does the citizen of any temporal order. For he 
views all "things" with an eye to their eternal value. That 
seems to be the sole point Jesus is making in the parable of 
the unrighteous steward, who shrewdly used his position in 
order to make friends (Luke 16:1-13, esp. v. 9). World- 
liness is hampered in two directions. It has a limited horizon 
and so only knows how to "lay up treasure on earth where 
moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and 

97 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

steal." And then it is hampered by anxiety as to food and 
raiment and things in general (cf. Mt. 6: v. 25, 2j, 28, 31, 34). 
The citizen of the New Order, on the other hand, values all 
''things" as they contribute to the lasting rule of God on 
earth. 

It has been said that the attitude of the citizen toward 
"things" may be described by the word simplicity. But again 
we need to think carefully about the meaning of simplicity. 
We are learning on a large scale these days to say after 
Socrates, "How many things there are I do not need!" Men 
who go to the trenches and folk who stay at home are dis- 
pensing with numerous "things" only to find themselves just 
as happy and healthy and fit as before, and usually more so. 
It seems a good time to think about Jesus' words concerning 
simplicity. 

What constitutes the simple life? Can we decide by 
enumerating the number of things we should have? That 
way many difficulties lie in wait. Practically every one can 
say, I live more simply than such and such a person. And 
is it all a matter of the number of things we have? Compare 
a country four-corners store with a big city department store. 
The one occupies a dingy frame building at the cross roads ; | 
the other a skyscraper which covers a city block. The pro- 
prietor of the one is at once manager, floor-walker, clerk, I 
cashier, bookkeeper, parcel girl, delivery boy, and scrub I 
woman; the other has its thousands of employees, each doing I 
a specialized piece of work. The one has a single depart- 1 
ment; the other hundreds of departments. In the country I 
store there is leisure and calm, in the city store bustle and I 
rush and roar. Yet which way lies simplicity? Your busi-| 

98 



THE INNER ATTITUDE 

ness man will answer, in the direction of the city store, for 
the business synonym for simplicity is system. 

Or think of the finely trained symphony orchestra with its 
hundred musicians playing strings and wood-winds and brasses 
and drums, attempting intricate scores of music. Compare 
with the symphony orchestra the town brass band composed 
of the dozen or so musically ambitious men who meet Satur- 
day nights in the village band stand. Does simplicity lie in 
the direction of the town band? No, for simplicity in music 
means harmony. Contrast a German army corps with ten 
boys in a street fight. The German army corps is far simpler, 
because each boy is a field marshal, and discipline is sim- 
plicity in warfare. 

Think of the most active man or woman you know, promi- 
nent in business, in society, in philanthropy, in religion, in 
politics, in aesthetics, and withal a lover of home. Now con- 
trast the person of the narrowest interests. Is the latter 
necessarily an example of simplicity and the former of com- 
plexity of life? Or is it the inner attitude that counts ? 

What was Jesus' attitude? He lived in the full round of 
the world's activities. He was a toiler, a teacher, a welcome 
guest at festivities, a man whom the common people heard 
gladly. He was no recluse. He seems not to have unneces- 
sarily stripped himself of the things that make life enjoyable. 
There is almost a plaintive note in his declaration that the 
birds have nests and the foxes holes, but the Son of man 
does not have a place to lay his head. He shared the com- 
fortable home of Lazarus and Mary and Martha with a gen- 
uine delight. Never once did He state a general rule as to 
the number of things a person must have in order to be a 
member of the Kingdom. The Rich Young Ruler had too 

99 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

many possessions, but it seems to have been his inner atti- 
tude toward them that hampered him (Mt. 19:22). 

Jesus traced simplicity to the attitude of the soul. It is 
conflicting desires that cause complexity of life. It doesn't 
matter in the least how complex the life in which we are 
called to live if our own inner attitude is clear and consistent. 
In this great passage (Mt. 6:19-34) Jesus sets forth four 
rules tur simplicity of soul: first, a single set of values and 
that the highest (v. 19-21) ; second, a singleness of vision 
(v. 22, 23) J third, a single master (v. 24) ; fourth, a single 
anxiety (v. 25-34 esp. v. 33). 

III. The Citizen's Attitude Toward God. Mt. 6:1-18. 

There were three conventional forms of worship current 
in Jesus' day; almsgiving, prayer, and fasting. He did not 
condemn any one of these forms. He simply traced each act 
of worship to its underlying motive and judged it by its 
fruits. The object of worship is to bring the worshiper into 
living touch with God. Jesus seems to ask, "Do your acts of 
worship accomplish that end? Or is that the real object 
you have in view?" The Pharisees' goal, "to be seen of 
men," was easy of attainment, and when they had accom- 
plished that object they were "paid in full." They could 
expect nothing more. 

Almsgiving (Mt. 6:2-4) was the only outlet for general 
philanthropy in Jesus' day. What He said about almsgiving 
applies, then, to all the varied opportunities for relief and 
service which our needy world offers. Do we think of our 
giving as an act of worship? What is the inner motive that 
prompts us? Few are tempted to repeat the brass band 
giving of the hypocrites (Mt. 6:2) in literalistic fashion, 

100 



THE INNER ATTITUDE 

but how complex our motives often are ! Jesus was remark- 
ably quick to sense the relation of the giver to the gift. He 
knew when it came from a genuine fellowship with God 
(Mk. 12:41-44; 14:6-9), and his appreciation of that sort of 
giving was warm and glad. 

The gospels show that Jesus prayed more than He talked 
about prayer. It was the evident contrast between his prayer 
life and the display of religiosity which passed for prayer in 
synagogues and on street corners (Mt. 6:5) which challenged 
his disciples (Luke 11 :i). And He pointed out the differ- 
ence. It was a difference in inner attitude. First of all, in 
the case of the hypocrites, prayer was a matter of self-con- 
sciousness, and self-consciousness is always weakness. But 
for Jesus, prayer was a forgetting of self and a consciousness 
of God, "Our Father who art in heaven." It is by looking 
away from ourselves and beholding God that we are changed 
from the old self. 

Then, prayer for the hypocrites was a kind of service they 
rendered God, and repetitions increased the merit (Mt. 6:7). 
That, said Jesus, is nothing but paganism (Mt. 6:7), and 
He made clear in the classic parable of the Pharisee and the 
Publican what real prayer means (Luke 18:9-14). The 
Pharisee simply congratulated God upon the excellencies of 
his workmanship in his particular case. 

"But the tax-gatherer, standing far back, would not so much 
as lift his eyes to Heaven, but kept beating his breast and 
saying, O God, be reconciled to me, sinner that I am" 
(Weymouth). 

Prayer, Jesus said, was to be brief and direct (Mt. 6:7, 8), 
persistent (Luke 11:5-8, 18:1-8), founded upon faith (Luke 

101 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

17:5, 6, Mk. 11:22-24), and prefaced with a right relationship 
with fellowmen (Mk. 11:25). 

The model prayer He gave his disciples (Mt. 6:9-13) was 
also surcharged with social sympathy. The individual is 
bound by each petition to his fellows. It is our Father to 
whom we pray, his Kingdom of men living as brothers for 
which we pray, and we may not ask for my but only for our 
daily bread. There is need for individual forgiveness, but 
the basis is "as we also have forgiven our debtors." 

Jesus' words about fasting (Mt. 6:16-18) seem to have 
least to do with our modern life. Yet if we apply them to 
all forms of self-discipline they still convey a living message. 
One of the subtlest of temptations is to discipline oneself for 
some good end and then brag of the performance. Ob- 
viously that has nothing to do with worship of God. Only 
those forms of self-discipline, and that attitude toward them, 
which lead to real, vital, and constant touch with the Father 
are commended by Jesus. 

"Beware of doing your good actions in the sight of men, 
in order to attract their gaze ; if you do, there is no reward 
for you with your Father who is in Heaven" (Mt. 6:1, Wey- 
mouth). All acts of worship, however involved or simple, 
are liable to the same criticism. It is the inner attitude that 
counts. 

IV. The Inner Attitude of the Ideal Citizen. Mt. 6:33. 

"Seek ye first his Kingdom and his righteousness." These 
words summarize the inner attitude of the citizen toward 
other people, toward "things" and toward God. All matters 
of form and ceremony are swept away by it. His inner atti- 
tude is to be a search which will call for the same wisdom 

102 



THE INNER ATTITUDE 

and practical preparation and endurance which men devote 
to the quest of the North Pole, and the same zeal with which 
men dig for hidden treasure. This search will be the con- 
suming passion of the citizen's life. It will be first for him. 
It will be a search for the things that are right from the top 
to the bottom of life. He will not rest until he lives in right 
relationship to other people and to "things" and to God. 
He will not rest until God's New Order is established on this 
earth. 

' The fires of war have burned away much that is cheap and 
superficial in our common life. Have we felt stirring within 
us the passion for a Kingdom that cannot be shaken and for 
realities which will endure? 

The reconstruction of the world must begin by the recon- 
struction of our inner attitude toward people and "things" 
and God. 



103 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE LAW OF LOVE 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

i. Love as the first law. Luke 10:25-28; cf. Mk. 12:28-31; 
cf. Mt 22:35-40. 

2. Misinterpretation. 

a. Simply applicable to a congenial neighbor. Luke 

10 :2Q-37 ; Mt. 5 :43"47 ; cf . Luke 6 -.27, 32-35. 

b. Love to neighbors : sentiment ? Mt. 23. 

c. Love to neighbors: charity? Mt. 6:2-4. 

3. Its real meaning. 

a. A matter of the heart and life. Mk. 12 :32-34. 

b. A practical test. Mt. 7:12 cf. Luke 6:31. 

It becomes very difficult to select from the gospels passages 
about love. Jesus did not define it any more than He defined 
the Kingdom of God. He was the embodiment of love and 
was in Himself the only satisfactory definition we know. 

Only on a few occasions did He deal with the definition of 
love specifically, and then He accepted the Old Testament 
statement about it. He did, however, guard against certain 
misinterpretations of love, such as that it could hardly be 
applied to those of another race or religion (Luke 10:25-37) 
or to enemies (Mt. 5:43-47) or that it was equivalent to occa- 
sional charity (Mt. 6:2-4). When we think about love we 
have to bear in mind, then, the whole course of his life. 

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THE LAW OF LOVE 

I. Review briefly the chapters on The Ideal Citizen and The 
Inner Attitude. Love is the key to all Jesus said about the 
character of the citizen of the New Order. 

IT. Is there any danger to-day of misinterpreting the word 
neighbor? Are you tempted to limit it to people of like 
tastes, of like religion, of like race, of like nationality? Did 
Jesus limit it at all? Has the Christian any right to limit it? 

III. Is love the same thing as sentiment? Read Mt. 23. Is 
it possible to love people for whom you feel no emotion of 
affection? Is love something you can will to do? How 
would you express a love which is without sentiment? When 
you do some act of genuine service for another does real 
affection sometimes result? 

IV. How is it possible to reconcile personal ambition and 
love for one's neighbor? Does it depend upon the goal set 
before the individual? Is it possible to adopt life aims which 
will at the same time call for the highest personal develop- 
ment and genuine service for, and love of, one's neighbor? 

V. What do you think of "brotherhood" as a modern 
synonym for love? Does it include the same ideas? Does it 
avoid the common misinterpretations of love? Is it subject 
to the same dangers as neighborliness? 

VI. What do you think Christ's law of love means in terms 
of business life, international relations? Can a young man 
or woman start to-day to live a life upon that principle of love 
to neighbor and succeed? 



A certain lawyer once asked Jesus this question, "What 
shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus drew from him 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

an answer to his own query: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy 
strength and with all thy mind ; and thy neighbor as thyself" 
(Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). "A right answer," said Jesus, *do 
that, and you shall live" (Luke 10:27-28). 

"And thy neighbor as thyself." These words Jesus drew 
from the lawyer. The lawyer quoted them from the Old 
Testament. They are perfectly orthodox words and not in 
the least sensational. And yet we probably are agreed that 
love of neighbor is the central teaching of Jesus. The sensa- 
tional thing about his law of love was that He actually put 
it into practice in his own life and summoned his disciples 
to a like endeavor. It has always been orthodox to believe 
in loving one's neighbor but it has always been startling when 
people have really tried to do it. And as a matter of fact it 
is the one part of Jesus' program which the world has never 
accepted, although they are ready to accept much of the doc- 
trine and paraphernalia of institutional Christianity. 

Since the world has been so slow about accepting Jesus' 
law of love, we are forced to ask, Is it reasonable? Will it 
work? Is it practicable in our kind of a world, people being as 
they are? Ought we really to try to love our neighbor as our- 
selves? These questions give rise to at least three others. 
Who is our neighbor? What is love? When is love to be 
applied to a neighbor? We need to clear away certain mis- 
interpretations and misapplications of Jesus' thought here, 
for it has sometimes happened that many who are outwardly 
his followers have never understood his program of love to 
one's neighbor, while some have lived out that program even 
though alienated from his professed disciples, 

106 



THE LAW OF LOVE 

I. Jesus' Program of Love is Bigger than Neighborliness. 
What does it mean to love one's neighbor? The obvious 

answer is neighborliness, that genial good-natured relation 
with friends and acquaintances whose back yards are next our 
own. Love to neighbor means that, surely. If we cannot 
live on terms of positive good will and serviceableness with 
those with whom we have most frequent dealings, the law of 
love condemns us, and we must suffer the consequences of its 
inexorable working, in the bitterness and petty enmity of 
neighborhood quarrels. Perhaps it is as difficult to live out 
the law of love with one's neighbors as anywhere in all the 
world of human relationships. 

But Jesus evidently meant something more sweeping than 
amicable dooryard diplomacy. The Pharisees had gone that 
far. Let them choose their neighbors and they could be 
neighborly. Even the lawyer was ready to love his neighbor 
if he was the right sort. If Jesus meant only that, then it 
might be possible to be genuinely Christian by a judicious 
selection of neighbors. But we congratulate ourselves upon 
our ability to see beyond such a narrow application of love. 
Jesus extended infinitely the limits of the word neighbor. 
No cliques or groups or class or social order or religious or 
political sect could claim Him while He walked the hills 
and dales of Palestine. He called every man in need his 
neighbor, and his disciples to-day will be no narrower. 

II. Love versus Sentiment. 

A second misinterpretation of love of neighbor has to do 
with the meaning of love. There are people who understand 
full well what Jesus meant by neighbor, who think that love 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

as Jesus used the word is the synonym of sentiment. To 
such people love of neighbor means an affectionate reaction 
to every one whom they chance to meet. If the sensation 
does not appear they think they have suffered a relapse in 
their Christianity. 

But such a sentimental attitude toward the world is not 
what Jesus meant by love. He who undertakes to interpret 
love as such a sickly sentiment will meet with one of two 
results. If he undertakes it honestly he will give the whole 
thing up as an impossible, foolish and impracticable dream. 
People will take advantage of his innocence and he will decide 
that after all it's a cold, hard world and every man must look 
out for himself. On the other hand, if he does not undertake 
this program of love in dead earnest he will soon be contin- 
ually simulating an affection he does not actually feel. 

If ever any one loved his neighbor genuinely, Jesus did. 
But He did not react sentimentally to every one He chanced 
to meet. Read again the terrible woes recorded in Matthew 
23 : "Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, . . . 
you blind guides, straining out the gnat while you gulp down 
the camel. Alas for you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, 
for you wash clean the outside of the cup or dish, while 
within they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Alas for 
you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are just like 
white-washed sepulchers, full of dead men's bones. O ser- 
pents, O vipers' brood, how are you to escape condemnation 
to Gehenna?" (Weymouth.) 

It is not that the world does not need more human kindness 
and tenderness and sympathy — is there anything our world 
needs so much? But the love of Christ finds its source much 
deeper than any mere surface sentiment. The love Jesus ex- 

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THE LAW OF LOVE 

emplified was a moral quality, subject to the will, not to the 
caprice of moods and emotions. It was something that func- 
tioned even toward disagreeable and unpleasant people, and 
one cannot love a disagreeable individual or a disagreeable 
nation unless love has claimed more than his fickle emotions. 
It must have captured his intellect and his will. As followers 
of Jesus Christ, as those who draw inspiration from the 
lives of the disciples, we are challenged to redeem the word 
love from its flabby associations. 

III. The Law of Love Not Emergency Legislation. 

Most of us have seen deeper than either of these surface 
interpretations of love to neighbor. We do not think Jesus 
meant by neighbor only those whose back yards touch our 
own. Xor do we think that love is equivalent to sentiment. 
But we have been guilty of thinking of the great law of love 
as a sort of emergency legislation rather than as the law of 
life. Have we missed the point of the parable of the Good 
Samaritan ? The parable of the Good Samaritan is a vivid, 
telling picture drawn from life. Jesus tells the story in 
answer to the lawyer's question, "But what is meant by my 
neighbor?" He replies: 

A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho when he fell among robbers, who after both strip- 
ping and beating him went away, leaving him half dead. 
Now a priest happened to be going down that way, and on 
seeing him, passed by on the other side. In like manner a 
Levite also came to the place, and seeing him, passed by on 
the other side. But a certain Samaritan, being on a journey, 
came where he lay, and seeing him, was moved with pity. 
He went to him, dressed his wounds with oil and wine, and 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

bound them up. Then placing him on his own mule, he 
brought him to an inn, where he bestowed every care on 
him. The next day he took out two shillings and gave them 
to the innkeeper. 

Take care of him, he said, and whatever further expense 
you are put to, I will repay you on my next visit. 

Which of those three seems to have acted like a fellow 
man to him who fell among the robbers? 

The one who showed pity, he replied. 

Go, said Jesus, and act in the same way. (Luke 10:30-37, 
Weymouth.) 

Of course the point of this classic story is that the Samari- 
tan's friendly, loving act was directed toward a member of 
a hostile race, while a priest and a Levite, fellow countrymen 
and co-religionists of the poor man, had already "passed by on 
the other side of the road." The lawyer's question, "Who 
is my neighbor?" was answered in full. If a despised Samari- 
tan stepping across the racial line to help a Jew in distress, 
especially after that Jew had been abandoned to his fate by 
proud representatives of his own religion, is to be thought 
of as a concrete definition of brotherly love, doubtless the 
lawyer needed to revise his definition of neighbor. Now the 
lawyer had been forced to admit that the Samaritan was the 
real neighbor in this case, so there was no chance for him 
to squirm out of his tight situation. 

But we have looked at this parable too often as though the 
lawyer's question were, "How shall I love my neighbor?" 
And then we have taken Jesus' answer as a full and final 
definition of love: "Pick up the wounded and beaten man 
along the track of life, bathe his wounds, take care of him." 
That is to say, love finds its place of action by the roadside 

1 10 



THE LAW OF LOVE 

of life. It is an occasional thing. It is not to be thought of 
as the main business of life, but rather something to be ex- 
pressed outside of business hours or incidentally. There are, 
to be sure, plenty of robbed and beaten men who need to be 
picked up and cared for, and love of neighbor will always 
find abundant, opportunity for expression in the work of 
rescue. But the law of love is more than emergency legis- 
lation. It is meant to apply to all life. 

As we think about our world to-day, does it not seem as 
though Jesus' teaching of love to neighbor had been ac- 
cepted only as emergency legislation ? On the battlefields of 
Europe men are being "beaten and left for dead." The Red 
Cross Samaritan does not pass by on the other side, but 
comes to the injured man, picks him up, bathes his wounds, 
pouring on oil and wine more scientifically and successfully 
than the original Samaritan knew how to do. It is a beauti- 
ful and effective expression of the love which Jesus taught. 
But Christian nations are still shooting the men down and 
will continue to do so until the end of time unless we learn 
that Jesus meant love to be something more than emergency 
legislation. 

IV. Love as the Law of Life. 

The love Christ taught is neither narrow, superficial nor 
occasional. He set forth love as the law of life. It is in- 
deed the whole law of life. Upon one occasion the Phari- 
sees asked him as a test question, "Teacher, which is the 
greatest commandment in the Law?" He replied in the words 
of the Old Testament, "Love God with your entire person- 
ality and your neighbor as yourself." The whole of the 
Law and the Prophets is summed up in these two com- 

iii 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

mandments (Mt. 22:34-40). According to Mark's record 
(12:28-34) one of the scribes commended this answer and 
Jesnc turned to him and said, "You are not far from the 
Kingdom of God." 

The other New Testament writers understood the funda- 
mental character of Jesus' teaching at this point. Paul in 
his letter to the Roman Christians tells them that "He who 
loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law" (Romans 13:8-10). 
And in a letter to the Galatian Christians he writes, "The 
whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself" (Galatians 5:14). And James 
writes, "If you fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures, 
thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, you do well" (James 
2:8). Neither of these writers treats love as a matter of 
impulse and emotion, but as a matter of will. It is com- 
manded of the Christians. They look upon it as a reasonable 
commandment. Love is that principle under the power and 
guidance of which we are to live our lives. This love to 
neighbor is an inner attitude which will find expression ;n 
forgiveness (Mt. 18:15, 21, 22), in a unique way of dealing 
with aggressors (Mt. 5:38-48), in charitable judgments of 
others (Mt. 7:1-5), and in reverence and respect for the per- 
son of another (Mt. 5:21-28). 

Jesus did not give any formal definition of love. It was 
not his custom to give formal definitions. He showed what 
love is in essence and practice by a series of dramatic illus- 
trations, such as the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 
10:25-37). In the Golden Rule He made unmistakable the 
practical meaning of love : "Act toward your fellow-men 
exactly as you would have them act toward you" (Luke 6:31, 
Mt. 7:12). He was Himself the living embodiment of this 

112 



THE LAW OF LOVE 

great law of life, and we understand love best as we under- 
stand Him. He lived out his program of neighborly love on 
the plains of common human experience. 

People have said that Jesus' teaching is too high and hard, 
that it could be worked out only in a world of saints. But 
when we read the Sermon on the Mount we find that although 
it is high indeed, in every single case the principles of Jesus 
are set over against the conditions, circumstances and person- 
alities of our world. Conduct is outlined toward a brother 
who is provoking, enemies who are insulting. Jesus seems to 
have in mind just the suspicious, unjust, hostile, self-seeking 
communities with which we have to deal and of which we 
form a part. This entire program of living is keyed to the 
present struggle with evil, and Jesus evidently meant it for 
folk like us. 

How is it possible to live this life of love to-day? How, 
in a practical way, are we to give expression to it? If Jesus 
did not mean by love anything narrow or emotional or 
occasional, and if He did mean that positive inner attitude 
which was the power behind his own life, what does love 
mean in our world? The word brotherhood best expresses, 
perhaps, this principle of Jesus in our own vocabulary. 

It is a splendid word, this word brotherhood. It takes 
us back to the nursery. What did it mean to be a brother or 
a sister in childhood days? As people look back through the 
mists of the years they are tempted to grow sentimental 
about the delights of chose early days. But when we think 
calmly and without emotion we will remember that the 
nursery was no such idealistic dream of peace and joy as 
sentimentalists would have us think. There was tempest as 

ii3 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

well as sunshine. It was a little world in itself, with most 
of the tragedies as well as the comedies represented. 

But the law of the rightly ordered nursery, the law of 
brotherhood which makes it a fit symbol of Jesus' love to 
neighbor, was the law of sharing up. If there was one 
apple and six children the apple must go into six pieces. 
Sometimes there were howls and protestations, and who 
would maintain that he felt any great glow of joy over 
the just division of the fruit! Were there sometimes little 
brothers or even little sisters who would have preferred the 
whole apple? But because they were brothers and sisters 
it had to be divided. That was the law of brotherhood. 
And is there any more profound definition of brotherhood 
than this : It is the will to include as many as possible in 
my own success and joy and happiness. It is the will to 
spend my powers in the service of our common humanity. 
How many brothers do we have? With how many people 
do we will to share the good things of life? 

Jesus' declaration, "Love your neighbor," was nothing less 
than a reasonable life program. He meant that young men 
and women should choose their life work with sole reference 
to the expression of the brotherhood in their hearts. The 
work to which the citizen dedicates his energies is to be 
that line of endeavor in which his personal powers can be 
most serviceable to humanity. We have thought of Christ's 
law of love as a counsel of despair or of martyrdom. Jesus 
thought of it as the motive governing every practical decision 
in life, material as well as spiritual. It was so in his own 
life. He faced and fought and put behind Him the tempta- 
tion to use his superb powers for personal ends. From 
beginning to end He shunned every temptation to the sensa- 

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THE LAW OF LOVE 

tional and responded eagerly to every genuine human need. 
Very early in his ministry an officer of the King's court 
came to Him to heal his dying son. "Unless you and others 
see miracles and marvels," said Jesus, "nothing will induce 
you to believe." "Sir," pleaded the officer, "come down 
before my child dies." And Jesus responded instantly (John 
4:46-50). Human need called forth all the great powers of 
Jesus. No one ever lived who was so successful in help- 
ing other people. He helped people who had tried discipline 
and failed, who had tried to live by a good program and 
failed. Where precept failed, love succeeded. Jesus loved 
men into the Kingdom. And one writer, pondering on his 
life, cried out in a burst of eloquence : How God must love 
the world to have sent one like Jesus into it! (John 3:16.) 

It has been said that two types of men stand contrasted 
in our world, the scientist and the politician, the one, the most 
conspicuous success, the other the most conspicuous failure. 
The labors of the scientist have added more to the welfare 
of mankind than the efforts of any other. The labors of 
the politician have resulted in war. But in so far as the 
scientist has succeeded he has exemplified Christ's law of 
love. Perhaps from an emotional standpoint he has made 
little pretense of love to neighbor. But his motive has been 
a selfless exertion of will and intellect in the service of truth, 
and consequently in the service of fellow-men. This is one 
phase, at least, of Christ's law of love. 

The New Order that is to be will have love as its throb- 
bing heart, pumping the warm, life-giving blood to every 
part of the whole human body. 



115 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY. 

Biblical Material. 

i. The social jflatform of Jesus. Luke 4:16-22. 

2. The social test of the Messiah. Luke 7:18-23. 

3. The social interpretation of the Beatitudes. Luke 6:20- 
26. 

4. The Lord's Prayer socially considered. Mt. 6:9-13. 
Here, as in our study of the law of love, we have, scrip- 

turally speaking, an embarrassment of riches. Every require- 
ment or characteristic of the citizen which we have studied 
so far is to fit him for life in a new society or Kingdom 
of God. Can you think of a single characteristic of the 
citizen studied so far which is not meant specifically to cre- 
ate a better social order? The Beatitudes (Mt. 5:1-12) 
seemed like a description of a hermit saint, but we found 
them to be capable of a most vigorous social interpretation. 
Luke, indeed, has a version of the Beatitudes entirely keyed 
to a social readjustment, by which the poor and the needy 
will be cared for. 

I. Read Luke 4:16-22. Paraphrase the passage which 
Jesus quoted from Isaiah, substituting modern social con- 
ditions which Jesus would have included in his program of 
work. Would He have included under "good tidings to the 
poor" and "release to captives" people who work in sweat 

116 



THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

shops, children who work in glass factories and cotton mills, 
breaker boys who spend long hours bending over coal 
chutes, telegraph boys sent with their messages into the 
underworld of vice? 

II. What does it mean to "follow Jesus" in the working 
out of a program like that outlined by Him at Nazareth? 
What are our obligations toward the physically and indus- 
trially hampered in our own community? 

III.* Read Luke 7:18-23. John's perplexity concerning 
Jesus was probably due to the fact that he did not see the 
big results he had expected from the Messiah. Jesus had 
spent most of his time working with individuals and had 
not changed things much as yet. Do you think Jesus ex- 
pected individuals whom He helped to help others? Was 
that his plan of making a new society or order in the world? 
Has it succeeded or failed? In so far as it has failed, what 
is the cause for the failure? What causes doubt about 
Christianity to-day? Is it because Christianity has not yet 
created the New Order of society which Jesus outlined? 
Is this in some measure due to the fact that Christians think 
of their religion as a "good thing" for themselves? Does 
being a Christian mean to you primarily getting spiritual 
satisfaction for yourself or getting in shape to bring in a 
better order of society? Look at that last question again. 

IV. Read Mt. 6 :9-i3. Is there anything in that prayer 
which refers to the individual apart from his fellows or is it 
all a "social" prayer? Think about your own prayer life. 
Do you ever pray for any one besides yourself and your 
own relatives? Have you caught the spirit of Jesus? 



117 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

In the midst of Jesus' active ministry He faced one day 
a crowd of more than five thousand people. They were in 
an uninhabited place, for the crowd had followed Jesus 
even when He sought seclusion. Matthew tells us that "He 
felt compassion for them and cured those of them who were 
out of health" (Mt. 14:14, Weymouth). As He thus minis- 
tered to them the afternoon wore away, and the time for the 
evening meal drew near. The disciples were troubled about 
the situation and they came to Him with this anxious query, 
"This is an uninhabited place and the best of the day is 
now gone; shall we send the people away to go into the 
villages and buy something to eat?" 

We can imagine that they were thinking, "This is too 
big a problem for us. See what a vast multitude is present. 
If there were only a few we might share our supplies, but 
how can we handle this crowd?" And perhaps they were 
even saying, "The Master is concerned with the souls of these 
people, their religious welfare, and He cannot be expected 
to deal with a food famine." But Jesus' reply was, "They 
need not go away; you yourselves must give them something 
to eat." The story goes on to relate how Jesus organized 
that crowd, made use of the meager supplies on hand, five 
biscuits and two sardines, and through the power of God 
and the cooperation of the disciples the needs of the multi- 
tude were more than met (Mt. 14:13-21). 

To-day the disciples of Jesus have upon their lips this 
same question, "Master, what shall we do with the multi- 
tudes? How shall we meet their needs, physical as well 
as spiritual? It is too big a problem for us. See, they 
are hungry, and ill-clad and overworked and underfed and 
poorly housed, and not properly educated, and we don't see 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

where these things are to come from. Shall we send them 
away to shift for themselves? Perhaps, as your disciples, 
these things are not a part of our business anyhow. Per- 
haps we are only to try to save their souls and not be con- 
cerned about their bodies. But the living Christ is saying 
to-day, "They need not go away; you yourselves must give 
them something to eat." 

It seems a long journey from the five thousand men, who 
thronged the shores of little Galilee almost nineteen cen- 
turies ago, to the teeming millions of our great cities ; from 
their simple life to the complicated tangle of modern indus- 
trial and social conditions. But once again the disciples of 
Jesus are thinking about the multitudes in their common 
needs. They are facing the social life of to-day and saying, 
Master, what shall we do with this crowd? 

Good News for the common life of men, or the social 
gospel — this is the compelling need of our world. It is a 
gospel which begins with the individual and is "good news" 
for him, but which widens with his widening life and is 
equally good news for the family and business life and the 
nation and the world, a gospel which is good news for 
despised races and for little children who have to work 
in factories and for the poor and the weak-minded and the 
physically inefficient, and for womanhood the world over, 
and for the multimillionaire who often needs good news as 
much as any one, and for all the needs of our common 
humanity. 

The person who has not felt this need must have been 
living a hermit's life. In the Middle Ages young men and 
women of the best type were mightily attracted by the 
monastic ideal, just because that seemed the only way pf 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

living the truly Christian life in the midst of an evil world. 
The world is evil enough to-day but the challenge lies in 
just the opposite direction. It is a challenge to put the 
yeast of Christlike character in contact with the mass of 
humankind, with the confident expectation that if the yeast 
be genuine it will sooner or later leaven the whole mass. 

I. The Need for a Social Gospel. 

That the good news of Jesus needs to ( be applied to soci- 
ety as well as to the individual is not a new discovery, 
but it has been given new emphasis in our time. Perhaps 
we have felt this need because of our inquisitive spirit. 

Suppose a man gets drunk; he is personally disgraced, his 
home is imperiled and impoverished and he is rendered 
inefficient for his work. Is it simply enough to say that that 
man is a sinner? Our inquisitiveness leads us to ask why he 
got drunk. Was it simply because he was a bad man 
through and through or a thoughtless, man, or were 
there contributing causes which were partly to blame? We 
inquire into his life and discover that he lives in a tene- 
ment under conditions that seem to us extraordinarily dull 
and uninviting, not to say repulsive. We ask about his 
work and find that he operates a machine which performs 
a single minute process in the making of a pair of shoes. 
We can scarcely endure the monotony of watching the 
machine for ten minutes, but he must watch it for weeks 
and months and years. The more machine-l;ke his motions, 
the more efficient he is. There is little chance for pride 
in his work. 

We ask about his pleasures and discover that he has no 
automobile and consequently has to depend for his thrills 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

on whatever is to be had. He has no club save the corner 
saloon, and there concentrated thrills are provided at five 
cents the glass, and he seeks to forget his troubles in the ways 
society has provided just as we forget our troubles in the 
socially recognized pleasures of our group. And we are 
led to ask, Is not society the sinner as well as this man? 
It is possible to live the Christian life under conditions like 
that, for men and women have done it, and are doing it 
to-day, but would it not be vastly easier if the conditions 
of life were more favorable? 

Or here is a man at the other end of the social scale 
who has gathered together a hundred millions of dollars. 
His methods of acquiring it have been corrupt and unjust. 
We say he is a malefactor of great wealth. He has no 
business with so much money. Too much power is gathered 
in the hands of one man and even if he use the power 
wisely and well it is wrong that he should have it. But his 
reply is, "I am not to blame. Society is the sinner. It is 
the way society is organized that has enabled me to gain 
this great wealth. I am but a cog, even if a big cog, in 
a vast machine. These corrupt practices which have made 
me rich are the common ways of the world. The men who 
cry me down have tried the same corrupt means, only less 
successfully. Society lays its richest rewards at my feet and 
praises me for what I have done." Is there something to 
be said for the argument of this rich man? 

Or here is a college student. For four years he lives 
apart from the common burdens and responsibilities of life. 
He develops habits of idleness, selfishness, and extravagance. 
He forgets that he is living upon the fruits which others 
have grown, that these days set apart are always bought 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

with the life blood and the tears of somebody. Has he the 
same excuse? Society makes possible, even encourages, such 
a life in college days. It counts upon the sowing of wild 
oats, laughs at questionable exploits, expects little hard work, 
tolerates a code of morals which could not prevail else- 
where. 

And so through all the levels of society each man has 
the same plausible excuse for his shortcomings and his sins, 
until we cry out to God for a gospel that shall meet these 
conditions. It is not enough to pick up the men who lie 
wounded and bleeding by the way that leads from Jerusalem 
to Jericho; we want to deal with the bands of robbers that 
infest that district. It is good to pluck firebrands from the 
burning, but what is to be done about putting out the fires 
that waste and destroy? The challenge of the times is for 
a social gospel to reinforce and make effectual the individual 
gospel. We want a good news for the world. Had Jesus 
such a gospel to offer? 

II. Jesus' Social Ideal. 

Jesus began his work by saying, "The time has fully come 
and the Kingdom of God is close at hand : repent and be- 
lieve this Good News." He had nothing to say about indi- 
viduals apart from this social ideal of a kingdom or rule 
of God. His picture of society was that of a family — a 
world-wide, peaceable, serviceable brotherhood. In studying 
about his idea of this New Order we saw how it partakes 
of the very spirit of democracy. The Jews had always 
thought of the better day which was to come in social rather 
than in individual terms. It was not to be a better day 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

for a few or even many individuals but a better day for 
the nation as a whole. 

Jesus widened this ideal by denying the national limitations. 
It was for Gentiles as well as Jews. He deepened it by 
making it a spiritual rather than a mere political kingdom. 
He purified it by revealing God as Father and men as his 
sons and, therefore, as brothers. He made it a present possi- 
bility rather than a dream for the future by showing how 
this New Order of affairs may begin now in the hearts of 
men, and that however small and insignificant its beginnings, 
we may confidently expect that it will grow. He made it a 
present reality in his own life and in his relations with others. 
He set forth the only motive which has ever proved effectual 
in social endeavor, a love as spontaneously alive to a neigh- 
bor's need as to its own. Jesus gave the world a social gospel, 
the Good News of the Kingdom of God, in which Kingdom 
the king is a divine Father and all the subjects are sons 
and all the sons are brothers. . 

When Jesus came to his home city, Nazareth, He seemed 
to feel the necessity of explaining to his own townspeople 
the nature of the mission He had undertaken in the world. 
He entered into the synagogue and read this wonderful 
passage from the prophecy of Isaiah: 

The spirit, of the Lord is upon me, 

Because he has anointed me to proclaim Good News to 
the poor; 

He has sent me to pronounce release to the prisoners of 
war 

And recovery of sight to the blind : 

To send away free those whom tyranny has crushed, 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

To proclaim the year of acceptance with the Lord. 
(Isaiah 61 :i, 2.) 

Then He proceeded to say to them, "To-day is this scrip- 
ture fulfilled in your hearing." His active sympathy with 
those who were the victims of the social order of his own 
time, his shocking fellowship with publicans and sinners, his 
words of cheer for the poor and of warning for the rich, 
the democratic spirit which He describes as the spirit of the 
New Order, his work of ministry to the sick of body as 
well as to the sick of heart, his entire life and teaching, 
is a commentary upon that inaugural at Nazareth. 

And yet, in spite of the superb sympathy and service which 
Jesus rendered to the downtrodden classes and races and 
in spite of his fair and just social ideal, there are those who 
find his social attitude disappointing. If He so sympathized 
with the unfortunate victims of the social order of his day, 
why did He not advocate tearing up the old social order 
and substituting something better? Instead of that He ac- 
tually spent his time helping individuals. He lavished Him- 
self upon individuals. "He had always leisure to attend to 
the humblest; even the children could claim his time." 

John the Baptist seemed to feel this difficulty. He did not 
see things happening in the sweeping way he had expected. 
He had thought the Messiah would inaugurate tremendous 
changes. And so he sent from his prison cell, asking, "Are 
you the Coming One or is there a different person that we 
are to expect?" (Mt. 11:3.) Jesus' answer was almost a 
repetition of his inaugural at Nazareth: "Go and report to 
John what you see and hear; blind eyes receive sight and 
cripples walk; lepers are cleansed and deaf ears hear; the 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

dead are raised to life and the poor have the Good News 
proclaimed to them." He seems to have committed Him- 
self to personal service with the social ideal in view. 

It is true that Jesus did not say anything about socialism 
or trade unionism or political revolution or economic the- 
ories or even the equivalents of those things in his own day. 
He was dealing with a people who were very eager for 
political and social revolution. They were tinder ready 
for any spark to set them in flame. From the Temptation 
to the Cross Jesus resolutely set his face against committing 
the New Order to such agencies. He knew that no mere 
redistribution of property or social reorganization would 
bring in the New Order if the people who made up the 
readjusted social order had the same kind of hearts as 
before. The New Order is first of all an inner spirit which 
seeks to find outer forms of expression. This was the 
reason why Jesus sought to create a group of individuals 
who have this social ideal and are committed unreservedly 
to it from the inside out. 

III. Jesus' Attitude Toward Social Institutions. 

If we cannot find in the teachings of Jesus a specific social 
program, we do find an attitude of approach and the values 
to be conserved. Jesus, standing at the center of the same 
circles of social life which surround us, claimed them all for 
the New Order. 

The first of these circles is the home. "Jesus throughout 
his public career was singularly homeless. The Son of Man 
had nowhere to lay his head." With the most touching 
solitariness of spirit He "stretched forth his hand toward 
his disciples and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren." 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Yet the religion of this homeless teacher was, in its char- 
acter and symbolism, a religion of the home. God was a 
father, man was his child, and the communion of man with 
God was the intimacy of child with parent. "The self- 
reproach of sin was nothing else than homesickness ; and 
the first utterance of a repentant life was : 'I will arise and 
go to my father/ " * 

We shall expect to find that Jesus guarded closely an 
institution which offered the fittest symbolism for the New 
Order. He encouraged marriage (Mt. 19:4, 5), and struck 
at everything that threatened the home (Mt. 19:6, Mk. 10:10- 
12). Nothing reveals his attitude toward the home more 
than his love of children. In the same chapter in which 
Mark records Jesus' sharp words about the dangers threat- 
ening the home, he records the beautiful tenderness of the 
childless Master for the children who were brought to Him 
(Mk. 10:13-15). "He took them in his arms and blessed 
them lovingly, one by one" (Weymouth). He had some- 
thing to say about family life also. We are not to suppose 
that He meant that the Golden Rule was simply for extra- 
family observance. That inner attitude toward other people 
finds its first and most constant chance for expression in 
the home circle, and we are awkward and selfish neighbors 
because we are habitually that kind of sons and daughters. 
In regard to the relations between parents and children He 
taught that the duties of the latter to the former are real 
and in no sense formal (Mk. 7:6-13). 

But with all his love for the home, Jesus taught that it 

* Peabody, The Christian Life in the Modern World, 
pp. 44, 45. 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

was not to be an end in itself but simply the highway into 
the larger Kingdom of God. The family whose code is, 
"Me and my wife, my son John and his wife, us four and 
no more," defeats the New Order of Jesus almost as com- 
pletely as do lax divorce laws and social immorality. Was 
this part of Jesus' meaning when He said, "If any one 
comes to me and hates not his father and mother and 
brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot 
be my disciple"? (Luke 14:26.) To Jesus the family meant, 
then, a stage in the realization of that universal family, the 
Kingdom of God. 

The second of the social circles which Jesus dealt with 
was the business world. Jesus must have been decidedly 
attracted by business enterprises. He had spent the larger 
part of his life in the thick of them. He draws his illustra- 
tions from three principal fields — nature, the family, and the 
business world, and it is from the last that He draws most 
copiously when He is talking about the kind of character 
which the New Order will produce. He seems to have 
thought of the business life as a kind of school for char- 
acter. His teachings are full of shepherds, merchants, fisher- 
men, laborers, householders, builders ; in fact, all the varied 
business enterprises of the day are reflected in the pages of 
the gospels. It was a very different sort of industrial and 
commercial life from our own, but we have only to substitute 
the inventor, the manufacturer, the wage-earner, the trustee, 
the contractor, for the business figures of the gospel, to see 
the same fundamental problems which appear to-day. 

It would be foolish to seek to find detailed information 
about the complex problems of to-day, but we may be sure that 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Jesus believed that one could be a citizen of the New Order 
and engage in these necessary occupations. Does it follow 
that when business is so conducted that the principles of the 
New Order are not observed Jesus would advocate a reorgan- 
ization of business? He did set forth two fundamental prin- 
ciples which are being increasingly recognized. The first was 
the law of service : "Whoever would be chief among you 
must be your servant" (Mk. 10:43). The second was the law 
of humanization : "Is not a man of more value than a 
sheep?" Jesus asked (Mt. 12:12). In a day when business 
to many seems nothing other than a form of piracy or 
warfare, these two principles of service and of humaniza- 
tion are steadily gaining ground. 

Jesus had little to say about his own nation as a nation. 
The peculiar circumstances of the Jews made it difficult for 
Him to express the profound patriotism which underlies 
all his teaching without stirring a revolutionary spirit. Re- 
volt against Rome would have been suicidal, and besides, 
Jesus was not willing to permit the ideal of the New Order 
to be identified with the passion, bitterness and narrow 
nationalism of the Jewish revolutionists. His nation was 
to Jesus the divinely appointed and prepared instrument for 
bringing in the New Order upon earth. He betrays not 
the least interest in mere political greatness as such. His 
thought is all keyed to the coming of the wider brotherhood 
of man upon earth. 

Jesus did not despair of a single social institution. He 
claimed them all for the new Kingdom. No one ever saw 
more clearly their weaknesses and wrongs, but He seemed to 
trust implicitly that the reign of God in the hearts of indi- 

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THE CITIZEN AND SOCIETY 

viduals would eventually mean the rescuing of every worthy 
social institution for the New Order. 

IV. The Social Attitude of the Citizen. 

In one paragraph Paul has two paradoxical sayings which 
seem to gather up the whole attitude of the citizen toward 
society. He is writing to the Galatian churches and he 
tells them to ''bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill 
the law of Christ." But he has scarcely finished that word 
of advice before he seems to contradict it by saying, "For 
each man must bear his own burden" (Gal. 6:1-6). It is 
not a real contradiction, however, but a great philosophy of 
life. The context shows that what Paul means is that 
although every man has to bear the burden of moral respon- 
sibility for himself and no one can assume that burden for 
him, at the same time Christ's law is that we shall help to 
bear the outward burdens of all the needy. 

The citizen of the Kingdom will say in every situation, 
"My responsibility is to make my decision right, whatever 
the circumstances are, and also to make the circumstances 
right whatever other men's decisions are." This is the two- 
fold responsibility of the citizen of the Kingdom toward 
society in all its forms. We cannot make decisions for other 
people nor are we responsible for their decisions save as 
we have failed to make every circumstance surrounding their 
lives helpful toward a right decision. 

It is largely through social sympathy and service that the 
citizen of the New Order gets his spiritual growth. We 
do not become spiritually-minded by saying, Go to, now, I 
will become spiritually-minded. God looks after our spiritual 
growth; we are not compelled to bear that burden. Our 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

burden is the social burden. As we live our lives at home, 
in the community, at school, at work, in the church, "bear- 
ing one another's burdens," God will take care of the inner 
life. 



130 



CHAPTER X 

THE CAPITAL CITY OF THE KINGDOM 

SUGGESTIONS FOR PERSONAL STUDY 

Biblical Material. 

1. Living near the boundary lines. 

a. The professional line. Mk. 2:1-7. 

b. The line of prejudice. Mk. 2:13-16. 

c. The ceremonial line. Mk. 2:18. 

d. The traditional line. Mk. 2:23, 24; 3:1, 2. 

e. The geographical line. John 4:19, 20. 

f. The line of calculating goodness. Mt. 18:21. 

g. The moral line. Mk. 10:17-20. 

2. Living at the capital of the Kingdom. 

a. The power of God instead of professionalism. 
Mk. 2:8-12. 

b. Sympathy instead of narrow prejudice. Mk. 

2 \iy. 

c. Fresh vitality instead of ceremonialism. Mk. 2 : 
19-22. 

d. Human needs above tradition. Mk. 2 :25-28 ; 

3 '3-6. 

e. A worshipful spirit instead of prescribed places. 
John 4 :2i-24. 

f. Hearty (Mt. 18:35) instead of calculating for- 
giveness. Mt. 18:22, 35. 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

g. A sacrificial venture instead of easy morality. Mt. 
10:21, 22. 

I. Make a careful study of the boundary lines as laid 
out by the Pharisees. Is there any danger of living near 
such boundary lines to-day? What do you understand by 
"professionalism" in religion? Do you know people who 
have such a spirit in their religious life? Are you entirely 
free from it yourself? What fences of prejudice exist to- 
day? In the light of Mark 2:13-17, what should the Chris- 
tian's attitude be toward such fences? Think of the people 
you are prejudiced against. Put down the reasons why you 
dislike them. Are these reasons Pharisaical or Christlike? 
Can you think of any tradition in your personal life or in 
the life of your school or community which is Pharisaical? 
How would Christ regard such a tradition? 

II. Now ignore the particular boundary line disputes which 
the Pharisees brought to Jesus and think of their attitude 
as a whole. How would you describe it? Does the word 
legalistic correctly characterize it? Face this same question 
yourself. Does religion to you mean simply lists of things 
you ought or ought not to do? Does it mean anything more 
than boundary lines? 

III. Contrast Jesus' attitude. Why was He indifferent 
to many boundaries the Pharisees thought important? Read 
again his answers to their criticisms. What was the out- 
standing difference between Jesus' own religious life and 
that of the Pharisees? Test your own life by the qualities 
which have appeared in our study of Jesus. 



132 



THE CAPITAL CITY 

It has often proved perilous to live near boundary lines. 
The buffer state always suffers first and most severely 
in time of warfare. And yet men live on in the border coun- 
try. 

The peril of living on the border between hostile nations 
is simply an illustration of the peril of border living in 
general, for kingdoms of thought and conduct have their 
boundaries which are disputed as vigorously as are territorial 
limits. This has always been particularly true about the 
boundary lines between the Kingdoms of Right and Wrong. 
The border region of these two kingdoms is the most thickly 
populated district in the moral and spiritual life of humanity. 

Very few people are willing to admit that they live in the 
Kingdom of Wrong. Even if it can be shown that they 
are actually dwelling there, they would probably insist that 
they are by no means permanent residents but simply tempo- 
rary inhabitants of the district for business or social or 
political purposes. But as far back as the memory of man- 
kind reaches there has been a bitter struggle on as to just 
where the division line fence between right and wrong, and 
good and evil, and truth and falsehood should be run. 

I. Boundary Lines. 

This problem was absorbing the attention of the religious 
leaders of the Jews in Jesus' day. When He faced the 
Scribes and Pharisees it was quickly apparent that their 
views were diametrically opposed. When we brand a person 
as Pharisaical we usually mean that he is, in our estima- 
tion, a hypocrite. But Jesus faced a far bigger problem 
than a group, of men whose prayers and practices did not 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

square. He was facing a great philosophy of life which 
exists to the present day. 

To the Pharisees the Kingdom of God was a definite area 
and the business of religion was to run the division lines 
and place the corner posts and fence it in. Whoever strayed 
outside their fence was outside the Kingdom and whoever 
was inside their fence was inside the Kingdom. These 
religious leaders were confronted with a tremendous task, for 
they were compelled to survey all life down to the minutest 
act of the individual in every conceivable circumstance and 
say whether that act was inside or outside the fence. The 
common people were confused and perplexed because it re- 
quired an expert theological surveyor to know where this 
ceremonial and traditional line ran amid the common tasks 
of life. The Pharisees and Scribes were busy keeping up 
the fences and explaining why they belonged in just this 
or that place. 

It was into a situation such as this that Jesus came with 
his message of the New Order. He began his work with 
the announcement that the New Order was at hand. Almost 
at once He was questioned about the boundaries. Where 
did He propose to run them? 

Mark's gospel gives ; in interesting sequence, a series of 
attacks increasing in aggressiveness and bitterness during the 
early days of the Galilean ministry. The first clash came 
over the healing of a paralyzed man who was brought to 
Jesus by four friends (Mk. 2:1-12). Recognizing the faith 
of this man and his friends, Jesus said to the paralyzed 
man, "My son, your sins are pardoned." Immediately the 
Scribes who were present said, "Forgiveness doesn't come that 
way. This man must go to the priests and go through the 

134 



THE CAPITAL CITY 

prescribed ceremonies before there can be any forgiveness 
for him." These scribal experts knew just where the cere- 
monial fence ran which this man must climb before he 
could be forgiven, and they cried, "Blasphemy!" But Jesus 
seemed to say that God is not bound by man-made bounda- 
ries. He deals with men according to the inner facts of 
their lives. And to prove it He caused the life-giving, 
healing power of God to course through the man's paralyzed 
body. 

The second clash was over a question of boundaries also 
(Mk. 2:13-17). Jesus had called Matthew the tax-gatherer 
to be his follower. In the eyes of all Jews this Matthew 
would be classed as a renegade. But Matthew was glad to 
follow Jesus, and he celebrated with a great feast, inviting 
the only friends he had, tax-gatherers and unchurched people 
like himself. Jesus was invited and accepted. That was 
a definite step outside the boundary lines, according to the 
religious leaders. "Doesn't your Master draw the line at 
men like these?" they asked Jesus' disciples. He said, "It is 
not the healthy who require a doctor, but the sick. I did not 
come to appeal to the righteous, but to sinners" (Mk. 2:17, 
Weymouth). 

The third clash was about ceremonial. The religious 
leaders made use of the honest difficulty felt by the dis- 
ciples of John because Jesus and his disciples did not fast 
(Mk. 2:18-22). They asked Him, "Do you mean to say 
that you don't even observe fast days ?" They felt that 
all their fences were tumbling down. Jesus turned to John's 
disciples ; we may well believe, and replied, "You will remem- 
ber that your master John said I was the bridegroom and 
he was the bridegroom's friend (John 3:29). And you know 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

that friends of the bridegroom are released from the cere- 
monial regulations lest the joy of the occasion be marred." 
These words He seemed to speak to meet the needs of 
John's disciples; then He turns more to the Pharisees with 
the words : 

No one mends an old garment with a piece of unshrunk 
cloth. Otherwise, the patch put on would tear away from 
it — the new from the old — and a worse hole would be made. 
And no one pours new wine into old wine-skins. Otherwise 
the wine would burst the skins, and both wine and skins 
would be lost. New wine needs fresh skins. (Mk. 2:21, 22, 
Weymouth.) 

This New Order was a new spirit too powerful and expan- 
sive to be confined in old boundaries. 

The fourth clash and the fifth follow in rapid succession 
(Mk. 2:23-28; 3:1-6). They had to do with the field where 
the Scribes had spent many a weary da> running the division 
fences, the field of Sabbath observance. And Jesus dis- 
regarded the carefully erected divisions. You Pharisees, He 
seemed to say, have missed the whole point of the matter. 
You act as though man was made for the purpose of observ- 
ing your traditions about the Sabbath. The opposite is the 
case. The Sabbath was made to minister to the physical, 
mental, and spiritual man (Mk. 2:27-28). 

Time and again Jesus was asked where the boundary lines 
ought to run. The Samaritan woman asked Him about places 
for worshiping God, "Where does the line run? Does it 
include Samaria or is Jerusalem the only proper place?" 
And Jesus answered, "Believe me, the time is coming when 
you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor 

136 



THE CAPITAL CITY 

in Jerusalem. . . . But a time is coming, nay, has already 
come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father 
with true spiritual worship" (John 4:21-23, Weymouth). 

Peter brought up the old boundary question about forgive- 
ness : "Master, how often shall my brother act wrongly 
toward me and I forgive him? Seven times?" 

"I do not say seven times," answered Jesus, "but countless 
times" (Mt. 18:21, 22, Weymouth). 

But Jesus* attitude toward this whole question of bounda- 
ries comes to clearest expression in the conversation with 
the wealthy ruler (Mk. 10:17-31). This man came running 
up to ask, "Good Master, what am I to do to inherit eter- 
nal life?" Jesus answered, "You know the boundaries, Do 
not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, and the 
rest." "Oh, yes," said the man, "I've kept inside the bounda- 
ries from my youth." "Then," said Jesus, "cut loose from 
everything and follow me." 

When Jesus found a man who was tired of running boun- 
dary lines He invited him to leave the border country and 
visit the capital of the Kingdom of God. He issued no list 
of the boundary lines or the corner posts. No boundary 
line disputes vexed his soul, because He Himself lived at 
the capital of the Kingdom. The Scribes and Pharisees 
spent all their time thinking about disputes over divisions 
and limits and laws. Their eyes were fixed on the ground. 
They seem never to have discovered how very fair the King- 
dom itself was. They were so busy warning folk about 
stepping over lines that they had not the time to describe 
the joys of the land, its running brooks and fertile fields 
and lofty hills, if indeed they themselves had ever noticed 
these attractions ! But Jesus dwelt in the great interior 

1 37 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 

regions of the Kingdom. He lived on the high plateaus 
and the broad plains where as far as the eye could reach 
it was all God's country. He dwelt at the capital of the 
Kingdom, the capital where God lives and men may see 
and know Him and hold friendly conversation with Him and 
receive strength and daily guidance for the business of living. 

II. The New Order Not a New Set of Laws. 

We have thought of the New Order as the rule of God 
in the life of the individual, and we have discussed the 
ideal citizen and his inner attitude towards God and men 
and things. We have called this inner attitude the law of 
love. We have thought of the citizen as he faced society. 
But now we must go one step farther. What is to be the 
motive power behind this splendid program for the indi- 
vidual and for society? Is this program of the New Order 
another set of laws, another set of boundary lines, truer 
and straighter than the boundary lines of the Pharisees of 
old, but no less irksome and difficult, rather, vastly more 
difficult? 

He who faces the program of the New Order as Jesus 
outlined it in the Sermon on the Mount will find it impos- 
sibly high and hard. All honor to the young man or woman 
who in the flush of idealism determines by the power of his 
own will to live out the Sermon on the Mount ! But the 
odds are heavy against him. There was a young man who 
lived in the first century of the Christian era, the vigor 
of whose will and the energy of whose personality the world 
has not ceased to marvel at. But Paul confessed that a 
program of living vastly easier of accomplishment than the 
Christian program condemned him. He could not live up 

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THE CAPITAL CITY 

to the letter of the Jewish law. Who will venture in his 
own strength to face the program of the New Order and 
live it out? As a program, as a law, as \ set of boundary 
lines, it is impossibly hard. 

Are we to suppose that Jesus of Nazareth did not know 
how high and hard the Sermon on the Mount is? Could 
He have lived in little Nazareth eighteen years, after that 
transforming experience at the temple, without discovering 
what human nature is like? Did He not battle with re- 
ligious leaders who were crafty and selfish and hypocritical? 
Did He not understand that the multitude flocked to Him 
because He fed them or healed their diseases? 

And what of his own disciples? How far short they fell 
of the ideal ! It was two members of the inner circle, James 
and John, whose minds were filled with thoughts of worldly 
honor when they asked, "Allow us to sit one at your right 
hand and the other at your left, in your glory" (Mk. 10:37, 
Weymouth). And yet, in spite of it all, Jesus spoke these 
high and hard words, which have seemed the despair almost 
more than the hope of humanity. He offered no new set 
of laws as a substitute for the old. He offered a new life. 
Instead of a program He promised power. This New Order 
in its fair outlines was simply the characteristic way in 
which the new life would express itself. He dared to pro- 
claim such a lofty way of life because He believed that 
there is a power available for common men and women 
beyond their own resources, which will enable them to live 
the life He outlined and make the New Order a reality 
on this earth. 



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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

III. Sources of Power for the Citizen. 

What are the sources of power without which this New 
Order is only a glittering dream? 

Mark, with characteristic simplicity, reveals the principal 
source of power for that early group of disciples. In de- 
scribing the selection of the Twelve Apostles he says, "He 
went up the hill; and those whom He Himself chose He 
called, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve of them 
that they might be with Him, and that He might send them to 
proclaim his message." Then follow the names of the twelve. 
In one-syllable words Mark reveals the primary reason why 
Jesus chose these men. It was in order "that they might 
be with him." He needed them and they needed Him vastly 
more, and so He called them into fellowship with Himself. 
Jesus avoided high-sounding titles during his ministry but 
He quietly took control of these men. He became their 
Lord and Master. All that they accomplished later they 
owed directly to Him, and they were the first to acknowl- 
edge it. They did not start out by being saints or theologians. 
They began by associating with Jesus. 

No doubt they found the teaching of the Sermon on the 
Mount as high and hard as we find it to-day. They could 
no more live it out by might and main than can we. But 
as they fellowshipped with Him a marvelous thing hap- 
pened. He lived Himself into their lives. His spirit perme- 
ated that group of men. They found themselves thinking 
about men and things and God as He thought about them. 

And then came the terrible days when He set his face 
to go to Jerusalem to challenge for the last time the nation 
He loved better than his own life. They followed Him to 

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THE CAPITAL CITY 

Jerusalem. They were dazed and bewildered by the tragic 
events that followed in quick succession, and with the cruci- 
fixion hope went out for them. They were like men who 
had followed a star over hill and dale until the star set 
and they were left to the darkness of despair. Intellectually 
they seem never to have understood Jesus and his message. 
They hoped to the last that He was to set up some sort 
of a material kingdom. 

And yet nothing could separate them from the spirit of 
the Master. He had chosen these men "that they might 
be with Him," and even the terrible death of the Cross, with 
its black background of Jewish hate and Roman might could 
not tear Him from them. When the Easter morning broke 
with its message of amazing joy and hope, these men re- 
newed their allegiance to the Lord and Master and faced 
a hostile world with triumphant faith. They began to live 
the Sermon on the Mount, not so much because they had 
accepted it as a program, as that the spirit of Jesus became 
the ruling motive in their lives. Paul put it most clearly 
when he said of his own experience, "It is as though I 
were no longer living but Christ were living in me." 

What had happened to these men so to transform them? 
Jesus had led them to the capital of the New Order. They 
had been on a journey to the capital during the days and 
weeks in Judea and Galilee and Perea. The way grew 
rough and steep during the last terrible week in Jerusalem. 
And for a moment they seemed to have lost the path, but 
the light of the Easter morning illumined the way and at 
last they came to the city of God, the capital of the New 
Order, where God as a Father maintains his rule of love. 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

They learned by experience the meaning of Christ's words, 
"I am not alone, the Father is with me." 

Such a profound inner experience came to these men in 
no mysterious fashion but in the simplest, most direct way. 
The spirit of Jesus became in a measure their own spirit, 
because they spent time with Him. They walked with Him, 
talked with Him, listened to his words and thought much 
about them. They held frequent friendly talks with Him, 
when the very secrets of their innermost lives were laid bare 
to his tender, healing, correcting gaze. They were lifted by 
this daily fellowship into something of the likeness of their 
Master. 

In the same direct, simple fashion the spirit of g Jesus 
becomes operative in the lives of men to-day. Nothing less 
than a constant fellowship with Him will lead us to the 
capital of the New Order. We are to listen to and ponder 
well his words, and how they cut through all pretense and 
shallowness and reveal the issues of life in our own time! 
We, too, must lay bare our inner lives to his purifying, 
strengthening gaze. We, too, must claim the privileges of 
daily comradeship with Him in prayer. And it may be, nay, 
it will be, that we shall be lifted into his likeness. 

But he who has come to the capital of the New Order 
will find it to be a different sort of city than he had expected 
The new spirit which fellowship with Christ creates is not 
in the least a spirit of self-satisfaction, even of spiritual 
satisfaction. It is the spirit, rather, of dissatisfaction with 
all the inequalities and injustices and wrongs of our common 
life. It is the spirit which leaps with joy at the unexampled 
opportunities for service to humankind which our world 
offers. It is a spirit which bids us stand shoulder to shoul 

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THE CAPITAL CITY 

der with Jesus as He reads to our stricken world the same 
message which came from his lips at Nazareth : 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 

Because he has anointed me to proclaim Good News to 
the poor; 

He has sent me to announce release to the prisoners of war 
And recovery of sight to the blind ; 
To send away free those whom tyranny has crushed, 
To proclaim the year of acceptance with the Lord. 

But beyond Nazareth lay Calvary and the Cross. When He 
spoke those wonderful words at Nazareth He accepted the 
possibility of a Cross at the end of the road. As the Cross 
is the symbol of entire devotion to the will of God it was 
the symbol of his whole life. He did not accept the Cross 
because He could not escape it. He stedfastly set his face 
toward it. He poured out his life in the accomplishment of 
the glorious program which He had read in the Nazareth 
synagogue, confident that God's way to victory is the way of 
utter devotion, whatever the cost. The resurrection was and 
is God's affirmation of the sublime truth. 

Following Jesus Christ will mean, then, not only standing 
shoulder to shoulder with Him as He pronounces to our 
world the message of individual release and social blessing, 
but also following Him even to the Cross of utter self- 
sacrifice, confident that God will grant us through Jesus 
Christ that same assurance of victory. 



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A TEACHING OUTLINE 
"THE WAY OF CHRIST" 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS 

i. Get a general view of the course by reading the entire 
book through, noting the points that especially apply to 
the problems of your group. 

2. Study the Biblical material first and then the material of 
the chapter. If you find that you differ with the author, 
go back to the Bible and see where he gives you addi- 
tional help. 

3. In planning the discussional hour : — 

a. Try to make your own outline before you refer to 
the one suggested. 

b. Begin with the part of the topic that will interest 
the group most and lead on from that. 

c. Make the discussion as general as possible by asking 
questions to make people think (see Strayer : Short 
Course in the Teaching Process, Chapter on "Ques- 
tioning") or by getting many opinions on a point. 

4. Ask yourself after each discussional hour : "What ques- 
tions have we found help in answering? What new 
questions have been raised ?" 



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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

TEACHING OUTLINE FOR USE OF THE LEADER 

Introductory Lesson. 

(For which no preparation has been made and in which 
time must be taken for organization of the group; yet the 
discussion must be interesting enough to claim attention from 
the first.) 

Preparation. 

i. Look up the Biblical references given in the suggestions 
for Personal Study for Chapter I and read the chapter care- 
fully. 

2. Supplement this description of the kind of people among 
whom Jesus spent his childhood and boyhood, by reading as 
many of the following references as possible : 

Glover : Jesus of History, Chapter II. 

Smith : Days of His Flesh, pp. 2-24. 

Kent: Historical Bible, Volume V (Life and Teachings of 
Jesus, pp. 43-56). 

Any good life of Christ which will give you a picture of 
the contrast between the worldly Pharisees and the simple, 
devout peasants among whom Jesus lived. 

3. What were the principal elements in the environment 
of Jesus' childhood and boyhood? 

Discussional Hour. 

1. How much do the circumstances in which a person 
spends his childhood and the people he knows influence him? 
Should a person say, "I can't help it, I was brought up that 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

way"? What is the place of will in growth? What environ- 
ment would you choose for a child who was to be a leader? 
What would you consider most important? 

2. What were some of the characteristics of Jesus' envi- 
ronment? (Get what ideas the group have and then refer 
to this question the next hour.) 

3. What influence would people like Zachariah, Elizabeth 
and Mary be likely to have? (Have the members of the 
group read Luke 1:5-6; 46-55, 67-79.) How well was Jesus 
acquainted with the great religious leaders of his nation in 
the past? (Isa. 29:13 with Mk. 7:9; Hosea 6:6 with Mt. 
9: 13.) W T hat influence would you expect this to have? 

Assignment Questions. 

Why should Luke have chosen only one incident in the 
boyhood of Jesus to tell us? (He was not careless in his 
choice of material. Bring out this point by referring to 
Luke 1: 1-4.) Does graduation mark the beginning of a life 
work? When did Jesus' life work begin? (Study for next 
time Luke 2:40-52.) What was the importance of his home 
training, the religious thinking of his day, his own awakening 
understanding? (Study Chapter I.) 

CHAPTER I 

Theme: What effect has the "set" of a life on the future? 

Preparation. 

1. Re-study the material of the chapter and jot down the 
main points you wish to bring out in the discussion. 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

2. Picture to yourself the incident recorded in Luke 
2 140-52, thinking carefully of its relation to his later call. 
What experiences may a girl or boy have to-day that would 
be comparable to Jesus' experience in the Temple? 

3. Read Luke 1 : 5-25 ; 57-80. Contrast the preparation of 
John with that of Jesus. Plan to bring out the points in the 
preparation of Jesus which next week will make this contrast 
clear to the girls (i.e., Jesus grew up among the people of 
a small town in every day human relationships. Next week 
you will need this point to contrast with John's desert back- 
ground). 

THE DISCUSSIONAL HOUR 

1. a. Begin with the assignment questions given out last 
week. Find out what the group thinks about the time when a 
life work begins. 

b. If you think every one has not read the chapter, review 
it briefly, trying to picture clearly the visit to the Temple 
and the discussion with the teachers ; what they talked about, 
etc. Get this from the group, if possible, but do not spend 
more than a third of the discussional hour on it. 

2. What hopes and ideals have we to-day that are as chal- 
lenging to us as those of Jesus' day were to Him? (See 
Chapter I, Sec. 2: Fosdick's "Challenge of the Present 
Crisis"; Dawson's "Carry On.") How much of the whole 
meaning of "Christian world democracy" need we understand 
before determining to make it our life job? Why does be- 
ginning to work at a thing make it easier to understand? 

3. What did the "silent years" do for Jesus? What char- 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

acterizes the "silent years" of the average student, — restless 
impatience, inaifferent "drifting," or steady, purposeful 
growth? Why are students being urged to finish college 
instead of going at once into war work? If Jesus could 
afford to wait quietly for his call in the face of the Jewish 
crisis, cannot we? 

4. What is the difference between pledging a part of our 
time and work, and pledging ourselves? Which gives "set" 
to a life? We are being asked in these days to give time 
and money constantly. Is there a greater gift we have still? 
Are we keeping for ourselves the greatest gift, — "an unex- 
hausted, untainted potential personality"? Has our "Fa- 
ther's business" become of supreme importance to us? 

5. What testing did Jesus' purpose meet? How much 
would mine stand? 

Assignment Questions. 

6. a. In what ways does the call to action come to those 
who have already "set" their lives? What is the signifi- 
cance of John as the "forerunner of Jesus"? Who are some 
of the forerunners of our day? (Socialists, labor agitators, 
etc.?) What made John great enough to be always remem- 
bered? (Read Mt. 3: 1-12; Mk. 1: 1-8.) 

b. How did his preparation differ from that of Jesus? 
Does a different job demand different preparation? (Read 
Luke 1:5-25, 57-8o.) 

c. What constitutes a call to leadership? (Mk. 1:0-1.1.) 

d. How shall we test the greatness of leadership? (Mt. 
4: i-ii.) 



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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

CHAPTER II 

Preparation. 

i. Get clearly before your own mind the contrast between 
the "silent years" of Jesus and of John. Try to see John 
through the eyes of a peasant Jew of that time— like Andrew, 
for instance. (Biblical references and material of Chapter 
II.) 

2. Think out the points to be made on the following topics 
and word your own questions before comparing them with 
those suggested under "Discussional Hour" : 

a. The elements that make up an ideal preparation for 
citizenship in the New Order. 

b. The difference between being the Great Herald of 
the New Order and a citizen in it. 

c. The adequacy of John's message for the world situ- 
ation of to-day. The further need of Christ-like 
leadership. 

d. The reality of the temptation to self-gratification, 
popularity and compromise, and the concrete ways 
they manifest themselves. The characteristics of 
Christ-like leadership. 

Discussional Hour. 

I. What kind of environment would you choose as a prepa- 
ration for citizenship in the New Order? (Refer to Chap- 
ter I.) Compare the preparation of Lincoln with that of 
President Wilson. Compare the preparation of John with 
that of Jesus. What are the necessary elements that any kind 
of preparation must have? 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

2. Can a man be the herald of a great cause and yet not 
have a part in its final accomplishment? Can you illustrate 
from college life? What is the difference between being the 
Herald of the New Order and a citizen in it? Compare 
the relation of Jesus and John to the New Order. 

3. Read in class Luke 3 : 1-20. Has the convincing note 
of hope, and the challenge to conscience any parallel in our 
day? What? Can what we are fighting for be attained with- 
out both of these? Do they together constitute an adequate 
message for our times? Why? What more is needed besides 
a message? Why did John also proclaim his own secondary 
place of leadership? What was there in the preaching of 
John to call Jesus from Nazareth? What is the significance 
of Christ-like leadership to-day? 

4. Get the group to re-state the temptations of Jesus in 
modern terms. To what extent does every leader face these 
same temptations? By what three tests shall we judge the 
greatness of leadership? What do you believe to be the 
essential characteristics of leadership in the New Order? 

Assignment Questions. 

5. How does one go to work to establish any New Order 
of things (such as student government, honor system, etc.) ? 
How far can a popular movement be utilized? What shall 
we do with the Old Order? Which is harder — to destroy it 
or build on it? Which is better? How are we to meet fail- 
ure, opposition and popularity? To follow up this question 
look up the Suggestions for Personal Study, Chapter III. 



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THE WAY OF CHRIST 



CHAPTER III 

Theme: Our methods of establishing the New Order must 
be statesmanlike as Jesus' were. 

Preparation. 

1. The "Suggestions for Study" might be used by the 
leader as a guide in planning the discussional hour after the 
chapter has been carefully studied. 

Emphasize concrete illustrations from your own campus. 

2. Or, the discussional hour may be planned as suggested 
below. 

Discussional Hour. 

i. Under what circumstances can a "new order" (such as 
student government or the honor system) be successfully 
started? Can you think of any college reforms that have 
failed because the leaders were too impatient? Compare 
this with Jesus' patient waiting until the crusade of John 
gave Him an opening. How can the widespread desire to 
give patriotic service help us to a deeper understanding of 
Christian service as a purpose for the whole of our lives? 

2. How far can an "old order" be utilized in building the 
new one? Compare Mt. 3: 1-12 with Mk. 1: 14-15 and Luke 
15:11-24. What elements in John's message did Jesus use 
in his earlier preaching? Did He later stress other things 
more? What elements in such popular movements as 
socialism, the labor movement, etc., can be used in establish- 
ing a Christian democracy in the world? 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

3. The establishment of a new order is never clear sail- 
ing. What effect do apparent failure, opposition or popu- 
larity usually have on people? How do you believe they can 
be met? Illustrate from your own campus or community. 

How did Jesus meet opposition, apparent failure or popu- 
larity? (See Sees. 2 and 3 of the chapter.) If the group is 
not fairly familiar with the chapter, you could distribute the 
following references and questions on slips of paper and give 
them five minutes to think them over : 

a. John 2 : 13-22. Try to imagine what it would mean 
to Jesus to come back to the Temple where He had 
listened to the scholars to find it the center of legal- 
ized graft. 

b. John 4: 1-2. How would Jesus feel about the rivalry 
that threatened the "friendship which had made 
possible the beginnings of his work"? 

c. Why was it "statesmanlike acumen" on Jesus' part 
to turn to Galilee after the failure in Judea? 

d. Skim through the first chapter of Mark and pick 
out what evidence you find of the rapid popularity 
of Jesus in Galilee. 

e. Illustrate the opposition of the Pharisees from any 
incidents you remember. 

f. How did Jesus change the character of his teaching 
in order to sift the crowd? Mark 4: 12. 

g. Having faced apparent failure, opposition and popu- 
larity, what course was left to Him? 

4. Why was Jesus "never so truly the statesman as when 
He set his face to go to Jerusalem"? What is the "states- 
manship of sacrifice"? 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

Assignment Questions. 

What do you believe the world most needs to-day? In 
your own college? In your own community? 

CHAPTER IV 

Theme: Why does Jesus' idea of the New Order offer us 
hopes for the future? 

Preparation. 

1. Think back over all the articles relating to the present 
crisis that you have read and get clearly before your mind 
what seem to you the three or four greatest needs the world 
has to-day. If possible refer to "The Challenge of the Pres- 
ent Crisis" by Fosdick. 

2. Now try to study the Biblical references as if you had 
never seen them before and were looking at them as a brand- 
new suggestion for the solution of our present problems 
Characterize the main points for yourself. 

3. After these two steps you will be ready to study the 
chapter and to add to your notes what you think will espe- 
cially need to be brought out with your group. Use some of 
the questions in the "Suggestions for Personal Study" in 
making your outline for the discussional hour. 

Discussional Hour. 

1. Get from the group their ideas of the supreme need of 
the world to-day. In what words do we express our aims 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

and hopes for the future? What do we call the New Order? 
Jesus used the terminology familiar to his nation. What was 
his name for it? 

2. Give each member of the group a chance to report on 
the references which they have studied. Then have the out- 
standing characteristics of the New Order as Jesus set it 
forth summed up. Use a blackboard if possible. 

3. Choose one topic, such as The New Order's Inestimable 
Value (or more if you have time), and see what significance 
it would have to-day. What values to-day are men willing 
to die for? 

4. Go back to your discussion of the supreme need of the 
world as you saw it and compare with Jesus' teaching about 
the New Order. Why should Christians believe that the 
New Order will fulfill the world's need? 

Assignment Questions. 

What part will this group have in establishing such a New 
Order? W r hat are the conditions of citizenship that must 
first be met? 

Study these individual cases and think out the conditions : 

(a) Mk. 1:16-20; 2:13, 14. 

(b) Mk. 5: 18-20 (esp. v. 19). 

(c) Luke 19: 1-10. 

(d) Mt. 19: 16-20. 



155 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 



CHAPTER V 

Theme: What will bring about the "transformed and en- 
ergized personality" necessary to living in the New- 
Order? 

Preparation. 

i. Look up everything you can find about the experiences 
of such men as Grenfell and Moody in becoming citizens of 
the New Order. Other references to use are: 

Burton : Comrades in Service ; Notable Women of Modern 
China. 

Begbie: Twice Born Men. 

2. Study the stories of some of the men who became 
citizens in Jesus' own day and Jesus* own teaching about 
citizenship. What do you think are the conditions? (See 
"Suggestions for Personal Study.") 

3. When you study the chapter see if you and the author 
differ about the conditions of citizenship. Find out why he 
thinks as he does. 

Discussional Hour. 

1. What do we expect of a new student in his attitude 
towards the college? Of a new member in a fraternity? 
Why are we especially indignant at "hyphenated Americans"? 
What does citizenship in a college or the United States 
mean? 

2. Jesus called men to citizenship in a New Order. Let 
members of the group tell the stories of the Gerasene de- 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

moniac, the fishermen and Matthew, Zaccheus, and the rich 
young man. Can you pick out from these stories the condi- 
tions of citizenship? When the group has brought out as 
many points as possible, distribute the different references 
given in the first part of the Biblical Material (to give further 
light on such points as : Repent and believe, appreciation, re- 
ceptivity, counting the cost, etc.). How would you describe 
the conditions of citizenship in terms of to-day to one who 
was not a Christian? 

3. Take such key phrases as the following: 
Repentance, — "that moral renovation of the entire life." 
Belief, — "the launching of the entire personality in the 

service of the Kingdom." 

4. Can you find any cases where fulfilling the conditions 
did not result in a transformed life? Did Jesus expect it 
to always express itself in the same way? (Recall the Gera- 
sene demoniac versus the fishermen). How would the "trans- 
formed life" manifest itself in your college or community 
if men should actually follow the leadership of Jesus? 

Who are the people to-day who answer the call of Jesus 
for such a transformation in life purposes and attitudes? 
Are they all among those we call Christians? What is hold- 
ing men back from full citizenship in the New Order? Can 
we expect that the New Order will make less exacting de- 
mands than our own country at war? 

Assignment Questions. 

What kind of a person would you call an "ideal citizen"? 
Can you re-write Mt. 5: 1-12 in modern terms? Bring it 
to the next discussion hour. 

157 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 



CHAPTER VI 



Theme: Will the Ideal Citizen as Jesus pictured him sat- 
isfy us in the New Order for which we hope? 

Preparation. 

i. If you have a half-acknowledged idea that the Ideal 
Citizen pictured in Mt. 5 : 1-12 is a rather impossible person 
whom nobody would want to be or know (and many of us 
if we are honest have to confess to some such idea), you 
may be pretty sure that your group thinks the same way 
and you will want to answer the question in the Theme for 
yourself in order to help them think it out. 

2. Why not begin by thinking of the people in your col- 
lege or community whom you believe make the best citizens? 
(Keep in mind Jesus' idea of a new order and your con- 
clusions after studying Chap. IV.) What characteristics 
stand out especially? What do you mean by power? How 
is it different from bluster? Why do we use the words 
"quiet power"? Who are the most powerful people you 
know? 

Then think back over a month of college and see where 
an ideal citizen would have acted differently from any of the 
students you know. 

3. Describe to yourself an ideal citizen in the new order 
we are trying to establish. Re-write the Beatitudes in terms 
of to-day. How near alike are the two pictures? 

4. This week make your own outline for the discussion 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

hour, working in any of the following questions that you 
need. 

Discussional Hour. 

Questions that may be used by leader in planning the 
hour: 

What is an ideal Freshman (or Sophomore, Junior or 
Senior) like? 

How many characteristics that belong to the ideal citizen 
of a college (or any other community) can you find in 
Jesus' picture of the ideal citizen? (Mt. 5: 1-12.) 

When you look at Jesus (who was genuinely the Ideal 
Citizen) what does meekness (humility) mean? Did He lack 
force of character? (Read in class John 2:13-16.) 

What new meanings can you find for the other Beatitudes 
when you study Jesus? 

What would happen if people and nations used this ideal 
of citizenship as a working principle? 

Assignment Questions. 

Which is easier as a citizen of a college to-day, to obey 
a set of rules made for you or to abide by the attitude of 
self-government? Which gets the best results? Why? 

Can you tell from the 5th and 6th chapters of Matthew 
what Jesus gave his friends instead of rules? 

CHAPTER VII 

Theme: Not rules but attitudes mark the Ideal Citizen as 
Jesus described him. 

159 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 



Preparation. 

1. When you have answered the first three questions 1: 
the suggested assignment, you will be ready to read the 
introduction to the chapter. What does the author add to 
your conclusions ? 

2. In three parallel columns on a note-book page headed 
'The Ideal Citizen's Attitude Towards (i) People, (2) Things, 
(3) God" jot down, as you find it in studying the references 
given in the Biblical material, whatever makes the inner 
attitude of the Ideal Citizen different from that of one not 
a citizen. If you use abstract words like "graciousness" be 
sure to illustrate with concrete incidents and use the chapter 
material after the Bible itself. 

Discussional Hour. 

1. Get the opinion of the group on the relative values of 
a set of rules and self-government. Will copying the man- 
ners and clothes of a popular student make an unpopular 
student liked? What will? Tell the group the story of 
"The Frogs." 

2. Divide the group into three parts, give one the refer- 
ences for the citizen's attitude towards "people," one those 
for "things" and the third those for "God." Suggest that 
they take ten minutes to determine the inner attitudes towards 
"people" (fellow students, professors, maids in dormitories, 
foreigners, under-classmen, etc.), towards "things" (exami- 
nations, "eats," clothes, societies, etc.) and towards God, 
that mark the Ideal Citizen. 

You may want also to use such questions as: 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

Why is it so hard to get along with people? 

How does my attitude towards the foreign student resemble 
that of the small boy who calls "Chink" after him? How far 
is such an attitude in the world responsible for the war? 

How would "simplicity" as an attitude towards "things" 
affect both cramming for or bluffing through an exami- 
nation ? 

Does my life "consist in" the number of societies to which 
I belong? Does a nation's life "consist in" the proportion 
of its commercial power? 

3. Ask each part of the group to report their discussion 
in three minutes apiece. 

How would you summarize the inner attitude of the Ideal 
Citizen? (See Mt. 6:33.) 

Can the war be truly "won" until this "search" becomes 
the "consuming passion" of our lives? Where and when 
does the "search" begin? 

Assignment Questions. 

What fundamental law guides this search which is to carry 
us into new relationships with people and God? Can you 
translate I Cor. 13 into modern college terms? 

"It has always been orthodox to believe in loving one's 
neighbor, but it has always been startling when people really 
tried to do it." Will you try this week to find out by experi- 
ment just how "startling" it is to apply honestly the funda- 
mental law of love? 



161 



THE WAY OF CHRIST 



CHAPTER VIII 

Theme: The law of love is the motive power of the New 
Order applicable to each part of its program. 

Preparation. 

i. Paul did not give a definition of love in I Cor. 13, but 
he did tell what resulted when you made it the motive. Read 
I Cor. 13 through slowly in either the Weymouth or Moffatt 
translations. 

2. Our author suggests certain popular notions of what 
love is. What happens when we think of it as "amicable 
dooryard diplomacy/ 5 "emergency legislation," etc.? (See 
chapter material.) Study the references in Biblical material 
(2) and (3). Have you thought before of brotherhood 
and love? Are they the same? 

3. Review the summary the group made of Chapters V 
and VI. What meaning for "love" will make it an effective 
motive power for such citizenship? 

Discussional Hour. 

1. From your experiments this week can you suggest 
why the world has never been willing to accept the funda- 
mental law of Christianity? 

2. Is love a sentiment? Is it "emergency legislation"? 
"amicable dooryard diplomacy"? Get the group to illustrate 
these incomplete definitions of love and tell why they do 
not work. What meaning for love does brotherhood express? 

3. What kind of person would this law produce if it be- 

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A TEACHING OUTLINE 

came the motive power of a life? Compare with your study 
of the Ideal Citizen and his inner attitudes. How far will 
this work between nations? Illustrate from the programs of 
the "League for Peace/' a "league of nations." etc. 

Assignment Questions. 

Can the law of love be made effective by individual 
citizens working separately? Why? Before next week try 
to paraphrase Luke 4 : 16-22 as expressing Jesus' idea of the 
way citizens of the New Order will go to work. Who are 
our "blind"? Are all our "prisoners" in Germany? How 
are we to "free" those in Sing Sing prison? 

CHAPTER IX 

Theme: The result in a society of citizens working to- 
gether for the New Order. 

Preparation. 

Supplement the "Suggestions for Personal Study" with any 
of the following references : 
Ward : Social Creed of the Churches, Chap. IV. 
Scudder : Church and the Hour, Introduction. 
Rauschenbusch : Christianizing the Social Order. 
Reports of the Child Labor Bureau (sent from Washing- 
ton on request). 
Current numbers of The Survey. 

Discussional Hour. 

1. Which is more to blame, the student who cheats in 
examination or the public opinion of the college which 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

encourages him "not to let his work interfere with his col- 
lege education"? Where does the burden of responsibility 
rest for the girl who seeks unsafe amusement, with the girl 
or the community which fails to provide a chance for clean 
fun? Can you suggest other questions like these? (Use 
illustrations given in the chapter.) 

2. Have two or three in the group read their paraphrases 
of Luke 4: 16-22. Draw out (by questions chosen from the 
Suggestions for Personal Study or worded by the leader 
beforehand) a discussion of what responsibility Christians 
have for the "poor," those who are "prisoners," etc. 

3. Why should we be working together as Ideal Citizens? 
What is our goal? What tools have we to use? (Legislation, 
playgrounds, etc.) Will these things alone accomplish our 
purpose? What bearing has this on our discussion of inner 
attitudes? Will the right inner attitude come by waiting 
while we leave undone the task of "bearing one another's 
burdens"? 

Assignment Questions. 

Is Christianity a matter of "oughts" and "ought nots"? 
We say frequently, "I draw the line." Where? At what 
people and actions? When do boundary lines become un- 



CHAPTER X 

Theme: The New Order of Jesus can become the new 
order for our world just because it is not a new program 
but a new .life. 

164 



A TEACHING OUTLINE 

Preparation. 

In addition to the Suggestions for Personal Study read 
Glover: Jesus of History, Chap. V. (Also Chap. Ill and IV 
if possible.) 

Discussional Hour. 

i. Use the questions at the end of the previous hour to 
start the discussion, drawing out a few of our special 
''boundary lines" (our "oughts" and "ought nots"), but try 
not to take more than six or seven minutes on this point. 
What Pharisaical traditions exist in the average college? 
How do these correspond with the "boundary lines" of 
Jesus' day? 

2. Unless the group has studied the chapter thoroughly 
enough to discuss it, first give out the following references 
on slips of paper to be read over in five minutes : 

Mk. 2:1-12; Mk. 2:13-17; Mk. 2:18-22; Mk. 2:23-28; 
Mk. 3:1-6; Mt. 18:21-22; Mk. 10:17-31. 

What was Jesus' answer to the rich young ruler as our 
author paraphrases it? Why does not such "cutting loose" 
end in disaster? What is the difference between this and 
license? 

3. The world has tried programs and failed. Why will 
a "new life" succeed? Would it be easier to live in the 
spirit of the Beatitudes or according to the Jewish law? 
Why? What made the friends of Jesus eager to attempt 
the harder task and increasingly triumphant in it? 

4. Are we honestly willing to test our desire for the com- 
ing of the New Order by the measure of our commitment 
to fellowship with Jesus, not alone when the crowds hung 

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THE WAY OF CHRIST 

on his words, but also when He "set his face to go to| 
Jerusalem"? 

REVIEW LESSON 

The last discussional hour should be truly a "review" of | 
the questions raised and answered in the previous discus- 
sions. Only two or three ways of doing this are suggested 
here. What others can you think of? 

1. Ask the members of the group to bring with them the 
three most significant questions raised in the course. 

2. Work out with the group the main points you would 
try to make in explaining Jesus' New Order to a Japanese 
factory worker or to a Chinese student. 

3. Try to write a prayer that a citizen of the New Order 
might pray. (Remember the perfect prayer, but do not 
merely copy.) 



166 



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